CPA chief on fight to keep crop protection tools
March 10, 2014
Pesticides face attack on all fronts from EU legislation, which could see many key actives being lost. Nick von Westenholz explains how the Crop Protection Association is fighting to ensure growers still have the right tools to grow crops
Challenges for UK farmers
What are the key challenges for pesticides?
There are a number of separate areas that are coming together to form a single challenge to arable growers by changing the way the EU regulates pesticides. This threat will see products being taken off the market, leaving farmers with fewer actives to tackle weeds, diseases and pests as they go about their business of growing crops.
There are currently four areas of particular concern:
First, a review of what endocrine disrupters are, which could see some key triazoles, alongside other chemicals, being classified as EDs and, consequently, withdrawn.
Second, a review of the guidance documents used by the European Food Safety Authority. For instance, EFSA is currently consulting on its bee guidance, and its initial draft could potentially lead to the withdrawal of a huge proportion of products.
Third, the European Commission is circumventing the regulatory process and taking products off the market, as we saw recently with neonicotinoids.
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