Sarah Pettitt, a farmer based in Lincolnshire in the UK, who is also Vice Chairman of the Board for Horticulture & Potatoes at the National Farmers Union, spoke to us very passionately about her fears concerning the pending revisions to the European regulation governing pesticides (91/414). Hear what she had to say in the video below.
Defra is to appeal against the judgment of the High Court in the recent case on spraying brought by Georgina Downs. In a debate in the House of Lords earlier this week junior Defra minister Lord Hunt confirmed that Hilary Benn had been given leave to appeal. ‘It is not appropriate for me to go into the details of that appeal,’ he said. ‘But at the end of the day, we all want to see good practice and proportionate regulation.’
Professor John Lucas, Head of the Plant Pathology and Microbiology Department at Rothamsted Research in the UK, was recently in Brussels to hand in a petition to MEPs that was signed by 72 scientists and agriculturists. The petition warns that the loss of pesticides could lead to serious problems of resistance in key crops in Europe (see previous entry). He granted us a few minutes of his time, during which we asked him about pest resistance, innovation in pest resistance management, the pressures on certain crops, and whether science itself might actually be responsible for resistance in crops.
This week Farmers Weekly Interactive reported that the UK food chain is seeking a meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister over the European Commission’s proposals for pesticide authorisations. The British Retail Consortium,Food and Drink Federation, Fresh Produce Consortium, as well as the NFU Crop Protection Association, British Crop Production Council, Country Land and Business Association and the Agriculture Industry Confederation have all signed the letter requesting the Prime Minister “urgently raise the need for an impact assessment with President Sarcozy and EU heads of state, for further discussion at the European Council level”.