EU pesticide proposals threaten tillage farming

TILLAGE farming may become uneconomic due to EU proposals to limit effective products used to control the fungal diseases to which Irish grain and potato crops are uniquely vulnerable.

So said Dr Tom McCabe of the UCD School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine at a recent Animal and Plant Health Association (APHA) conference. “A reduction in the range of effective products would lead to critical problems of disease resistance, thereby jeopardising crop yield and quality,” said Dr McCabe.

“We need only to look at the example in 2002, when the wheat disease septoria developed resistance to a group of products, called strobilurins, to see the risks associated with a narrow range of products,” he added.

Teagasc chief scientific adviser Professor Jimmy Burke said the proposals have no scientific basis. “The regulation of disease prevention products should be based on an acceptable balance between technical efficiency, food cost, food quality and protection of the environment.”

Farmers have warned that any move to limit plant protection products will end commercial cereal, horticultural and potato production in Ireland.

IFA president Padraig Walshe said, “Europe has the most robust science-based approval system for assessing plant protection products in the world. Abandoning this and moving to a hazard-based system will hinder efforts by growers to combat crop pests. This has the potential to reduce grain production of cereals by up to 50%, while in the case of some horticultural crops lead to total crop failure. In addition, it will also potentially lead to an increase in pest resistance, particularly in the case of blight in potatoes. This move by the EU will at the same time confer a significant competitive advantage to non-EU producers, allowing them to use banned substances to produce food while still allowing this food access to Europe’s markets.”

A report commissioned by the Dutch Agriculture Ministry has revealed the European Parliament’s strict cut-off criteria proposed for pesticides could effectively end their production of roses, chrysanthemum, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, seed onions, tulip bulbs and shrubs.

A second reading for the draft EU Regulation on the Placing of Plant Protection Products on the Market is currently taking place in the European Parliament.