Pesticide Information

New scientific research suggests that pesticides have a lesser effect on bees than first thought. The debate took to the airwaves last week on BBC’s Radio 4, here’s the full transcript…

 

Charlotte Smith (Farming Today, BBC Radio 4): Insecticides may not be as bad for bees as previously thought, according to the American researcher who’d linked bee deaths with a type of insecticide, neonicitinoids. Dr Jeff Pettis from the US Agricultural Research Service now says the chemicals don’t appear to have as big an effect on bee health as he first thought. In the US honey bee numbers have fallen by a third and here too there’s been a decline in the bee population. Well as we’ll hear in a moment environmentalists and the pesticide industry disagree on the safety of neonicitinoid insecticides which are applied to seeds and so are taken up by the growing plant…

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.’