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Prof James Brown, an expert in breeding crops for resistance to disease at the John Innes Centre, said:
“Plant breeders have made great progress in developing varieties of crops which have resistance to disease. Although their resistance goes a long way in suppressing disease, it isn’t perfect. Farmers need to use fungicides to fill the gap between the level of control achieved by growing resistant varieties and the level of production needed to feed people in Europe at a price they can afford.
“Fungicides are especially vital when weather conditions are unfavourable. In the wet summer of 2007, destructive outbreaks of late blight caused serious damage to potato crops. Without the use of pesticides on both conventional and organic crops, production of potatoes would have been almost impossible. The main fungicide used to control blight in conventional potato crops, Mancozeb, is likely to be banned under the new European regulations. Ironically, copper, a heavy metal which is toxic to people, is approved for use in organic farming.
“Why can’t breeders produce crops which are perfectly resistant to disease? One reason is that the diseases themselves constantly change. New strains of the microbes that cause blight, rust and mildew can overcome the resistance of crop varieties. When this happens, farmers have to spray fungicides to maintain production. Fungicides are also essential when new diseases appear. A leaf spot disease of barley called Ramularia first appeared in Europe ten years ago. It is now is a serious problem in Scotland and Ireland and is spreading into England. Plant breeders are working to produce barley varieties which are resistant to Ramularia but until these varieties are released, which may take another ten years, there is no alternative to fungicides.
“In effect, plant breeders have to keep running to stay in the same place when it comes to disease control, like the Red Queen in ‘Through the Looking Glass’.
“If the new European regulations are approved by member states, most of the azole fungicides used to control diseases of cereals will be banned. This will make it much harder for farmers to manage wheat and barley crops, and is likely to result in lower grain production and higher food prices.”
Dr Bill Parker, Horticulture Research & Consultancy Manager at ADAS, said:
“It’s important to remember that virtually all of the products likely to be affected have been used for many years with no problems at all – the beauty of the old risk-based system. The implication that somehow food and the environment will now be dramatically safer is a largely spurious one. Although the suggestion is that it may be 10 years before products go, I suspect some will go a lot quicker than that as companies won’t want to spend time promoting a lame duck. Whether the impact of the legislation will be as bad as currently forecast may well depend on exactly what companies have in their new product pipelines – on that we can (as always) only wait and see.
“The proposal to not spray round schools, parks etc seems to be entirely pragmatic and I think few would argue with that as the area of land so affected will be very small – if I was a farmer next to school I certainly would not be spraying up to the fence in the interests of good public relations and to be seen to be applying a precautionary principle.”
Prof Alan Boobis, Toxicologist at Imperial College London, said:
“There is a real concern that this decision reflects the continued dissemination of opinions based on half-truth, misunderstanding and deliberate misrepresentation. This decision is not supported by the current state of the science.
“A risk benefit analysis would reveal that in the longer term, the threat to the food supply in the UK in an era of increasing concerns to food security (climate change, terrorism, etc) is likely to overwhelm the theoretical gain from such a decision.”
Prof Chris Elliott, Chair of Food Safety at Queens University Belfast, said:
“The ban is part on the EU’s ongoing efforts to make food safer for the European consumer. There is no doubt that pesticides have been shown to cause serious ill health effects following gross exposure however if this is the case with the minute amounts that can be found in food is far from clear. Many scientists are becoming increasingly concerned about the combined and detrimental effects of so many chemicals in foods so the action of the EC must be welcomed from this point of view. From the perspective of the farmer, particularly those farming in wetter climates, the legislation must seem like another blow to their industry. There are those who will promote the increase of organic production to offset the problem and this may be a part of the solution. Perhaps, however, the focus of attention should also point towards the reassessment of growing GMO crops. Are there any real risks and what are the major advantages from a viewpoint of safety and economics? This is a debate which must be driven forward by the UK Food Standards Agency.”