Europarl TV have just produced an interesting TV report, debating Europe’s pesticides and legislation.

“Evidence suggests that increased use of pesticides in farming is linked to a rise in certain fatal illnesses such as cancers. In order to curb exposure to these toxic substances the EU adopted the Pesticides Package, but will killing off pesticides actually kill off production?”

Aspects of UK pesticides policy in the UK will require reconsideration after Mr Justice Collins allowed an application in the High Court from campaigner Georgina Downs for a review of current policy. She has argued that exposure to crop chemicals caused illness.

The judge said: ‘I recognise that it is not easy to attribute a particular cause to many chronic illnesses, and a view that a cause has been identified may be wrong.  But there is evidence that some long-term illnesses may be attributable to exposure [to pesticides]. He said the complainant had produced ’solid evidence’ that rural residents had ’suffered harm to their health … or, at the very least, doubts have reasonably been raised as to the safety of pesticides’ under the Government’s current rules.

Defra have to consider whether to appeal and the initial response I heard from a junior minister on Radio 5 was relatively robust, emphasising the importance of safety, but also mentioning other considerations such as food security. In a statement, the department said that ‘Pesticides used in [the UK] are rigorously assessed to the same standards as he rest of the EU and use is only ever authorised after internationally approved tests. These explicitly include impacts on people who live next to fields, consumers who eat treated crops and farmers who do the spraying.’

The judgement is a long and complex one and the department said it would examine ‘whether there are ways in which we can strengthen our system further and also to consider whether it would put us out of step with the rest of Europe and have implications for other member states.’ This is an important consideration given efforts to reduce regulatory barriers between member states that hinder the functioning of an internal market in plant protection products.

The issue was reviewed in an extensive earlier report by the UK’s Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution when the issue of ‘buffer zones’ was raised. The judge said that amendments to the government’s pesticide rules could include the extension of buffer zones, which are at present set to ensure that pesticides are not sprayed on water courses. Under present arrangements farmers are not required to leave a buffer zone around fields to prevent chemicals landing on paths or adjacent land.

It is generally agreed that pesticides are probably the most regulated substances in production. The existence of a rigorous regulatory system is appropriate. As always, the issue is striking a balance. As Defra acknowledged in its statement, human health is paramount. However, the fact that someone was near a field being sprayed and subsequently contracted an illness does not demonstrate a cause and effect relationship. That would require careful analysis.

At the European Voice event we recently attended (see our previous entry) we had a short chat with Mr Otmar Weingarten, who is Managing Director of the the Verband Deutscher Hopfenpflanzer, the Association of German Hop Growers. Mr Weingarten spoke about: the yield and quality reductions that German hop growers (who account for a third of global production) might face if the revision of the current pesticides regulation, Directive 91/414, is passed; the grave threat posed by the hop aphid on yields in Germany; and the viability of organic methods.

A frequently expressed concern is that the main potential losers from the proposed changes in pesticide rules might be various fruits and vegatables such as peas, cabbages and carrots.  The relatively small volumes of production might not justify the commercial effort to find replacement products. Although customarily referred to as ‘minor uses’ of plant protection products, they are important components of a healthy diet. Less well off consumers might particularly be affected by an increase in their price as a result of reduced availability of supply.

This issue was addressed by consultant Cathy Knott at a NFU pesticides conference. She argued that, ‘You may still be able to grow arable crops, but horticultural crops just wouldn’t be viable.’ The greatest threats were to carrot, strawberry, onion, lettuce and pea crops.  Leeks and parsnips would also be severely affected. Weed control, in particular, could be compromised in many of these crops, especially carrots.

Volunteer potato control would be a particular struggle without a prosulfocarb + linuron mix, following the loss of metotoxuron. Failing to control weeds that produced toxic weed parts, such as black nightshade berries or volunteer potato apples in vining pea crops, could be a serious threat to the industry. She warned, ‘If vining peas become uneconomic to produce, then factories could close and frozen and canned peas could be imported from outside the EU.’

The loss of ioxynil on top of linuron and pendimethalin would be serious for onions, and metazachlor is important for brassicas. In strawberries, propachlor and napropamide had been lost already. ‘Losing pendimethalin would finish them off.’ Mechanical weed control in some crops would be an option, but yields would be reduced because of less effective weed control, and growers would need extra hand labour, a resource they struggled to find already. ‘Finding enough land to maintain production  would be a problem too.’

Disease conrol in a number of crops would be compromised if triazole fungicides fell foul of an endrocrine disruptor hazard criteria, and the added restrictions proposed by the European Parliament would exacerbate problems by removing alternative fungicides.

The Commission would no doubt emphasise the five year derogation which is available where an active substance is necessary to control a serious danger to plant health which cannot be contained by any other available means, although even that has been challenged in the Parliament.

In a recent written Parliamentary answer, EU Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou denied that the criteria are cut-off criteria because ‘highly hazardous substances can be approved if exposure to them is negligible (e.g., closed system).’ However, this would be of little help in relation to field vegetables. She also argued that the one impact assessment carried out by a member state, that by the Pesticides Safety Directorate in the UK, was ‘unrealistic’ because it was based on a worst-case scenario where, for example, all endocrine disruptors would be classified as such after a scientific evaluation.

Opponents of an impact assessment at the EU level by EFSA argue that it is a delaying tactic. Parliament Rappoteur Hiltrud Breyer has pointed to the REACH regulation on chemicals which ended up with 42 impact assessments which all reached different conclusions.  Nevertheless, there are so many conflicting views on the proposed new regulations, and their potential impact – especially on minor crops – is so great that there is surely an argument for improving the evidence base on which important decisions are made.

Those who claim that reports like that by the UK Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) exaggerate the likely impact of proposed changes to EU pesticides legislation often point to the existence of a derogation in the Council’s common position. This would allow the continued use for up to five years of pesticides that would otherwise be banned, if there are no alternatives available. In other words, the impact is postponed and notionally it would allow the development and registration of new products, except that this process normally takes more than five years.

However, the derogation is opposed by Green German MEP Hiltrud Breyer in her report to the European Parliament’s environment committee in which numerous changes are recommended to the common position reached at the agriculture Council in June. In particular, she wants to scrap the derogation. Her argument is that impact assessments such as that by the PSD are exaggerated, designed to create panic and flood MEPs with information (although that is surely not undesirable if the information is accurate).

In all my dealings with the PSD, I have found them to be a highly responsible, science-based, cautious (perhaps sometimes a little bit too cautious) organisation. They are all you would expect a high quality regulator to be. The report was carefully worded and responsible, although unavoidably it has to make some assumptions, given that the final form of the legislation is not yet known.

One way to resolve these different positions about possible impacts would be for the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to conduct a comprehensive impact assessment. To date, the view of EFSA has not been requested. This is a little surprising given that it is a reputable body established to provide scientific advice on Community legislation on issues which have an impact on food safety