FOOD 2050

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”.

What is left of the sugar beet sector in the UK could be wiped out for good if the European Parliament’s plan for restructing the range of pesticides available to farmers makes it into law, argues the British Beet Research Organisation. The Commission’s proposals would have a relatively small impact. ‘By contrast, the parliament’s peoposals would wipe out the UK sugar industry, because it would be too costly to grow dense stands of healthy, weed-free plants without today’s seed treatments and insecticides, none of which would have been approved.’

In a similar vein to what we’re trying to do here on pesticideinformation.eu i.e. present all sides of the story, BBC Radio Humberside recently interviewed spokespeople from both the UK NGO, The Soil Association, and the National Farmers Union, on the impending legislative proposals governing pesticides in the EU. Two well articluated but of course different takes on the issues and well worth a listen.

BBC: Soil Association

BBC: NFU

In this clip, Philip Huxtable speaks about Integrated Farm Management (IFM) on his farm. European farmers are increasingly adopting and developing IFM, which combines traditional farming methods with modern technology and products: ‘the best of both’. This approach combines techniques such as crop rotation to prevent the build-up of certain pests in one field, choosing varieties of crops which are more resistant to disease, crop sanitation, and biological controls i.e. promoting beneficial insects that eat target pests, and only using pesticides (chemical crop protection) as the last line of defence.