Early next year, the European Union (EU) is due to finalise a series of complex regulations on the use of pesticides. The new rules are designed to protect the public, but British growers believe that the EU has gone completely over the top and that the rules could effectively ban three-quarters of existing products.

Innovations manager Keston Williams of major salad producer Natures Way Foods has been very vocal in his opposition to the proposals. "It will be a disaster. It will be bad for competition. It will be terrible for resistance management - with relatively few products on the market, pests could soon become resistant to them. It could also mean that many of the products on which we currently rely will simply be outlawed."

There are currently two pieces of legislation going through the European Union, both of which were first proposed in 2006. One is intended as a replacement for directive 91/4/14, which deals with the approval of pesticides (plant protection products) for industrial use. Directive 91/4/14 has been the basis for the EC review programme, which since 1995 has seen the withdrawal of dozens of pesticides. The other is a sustainable-use directive, which will try to promote "integrated farming" and reduce the use of pesticides by 50 per cent. It is the first of these measures that is causing the most anxiety to growers because it could lead to the removal from the market of a large number of commonly used products.

The problem has been made worse by the complex way in which European legislation is created. Under European rules, every piece of legislation has to be discussed by both the European Commission and the European Parliament. Each of these bodies produces a piece of draft legislation. The two sets of draft legislation then have to be joined together: this usually involves lengthy negotiations. Crop Protection Association (CPA) director of policy Dr Anne Buckenham explains: "The problem is that the European Commission will come up with one set of rules and the European Parliament will try to take things one step further."

The Parliament and the Commission are trying to restrict the hazards being created by pesticides. For example, they are both keen to ban "persistent organic pollutants"; however, they each have different criteria of what to ban. Persistent organic pollutants are defined as those that are tenacious (ie they don't biodegrade rapidly), those that "bio-accumulate" (ie they can build up in plants and animals) and those that have "long-range transport" (ie they may be washed or blown into other areas).

The Commission only wants to ban products that display all three of these characteristics. But the European Parliament wants to ban any product that has any one of these characteristics.

In addition, the European Parliament wants to ban any product that is toxic to bees. This would effectively outlaw a large number of insecticides. And these are just two of the hazards that the EU is trying to remove.

The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA), which is lobbying against the proposed changes, has surveyed its members on the issue. It believes the European Commission's plans could result in between nine and 25 per cent of products being taken off the market. The European Parliament's proposals are far more worrying: they could remove between 67 and 86 per cent of products.

The ECPA, along with Copa-Cogeca - an organisation representing small farmers and co-operatives - fears that such a restriction on chemicals could lead to reduced harvest yields at a time when global food shortages are becoming an increasing threat.

Only last week (as reported in the Financial Times), ECPA director general Friedhelm Schmider warned Europe's policy makers: "For many of these pests we have run out of solutions."

Within the UK industry, it is widely felt that the moves have gone too far.

CPA executive Peter Hingley, who is also UK general manager of chemical company Certis, argues that more controls are largely unnecessary: "Britain already has very stringent restrictions on pesticide use. We feel that we're already at the forefront of control and any extra moves are simply arbitrary."

There is concern that the new proposals don't take account of the way in which products are used - some products may be harmful in large quantities, but if applied sparingly may be an efficient way of dealing with pests.

Growers are certainly worried. Williams explains: "We produce salad crops and are very reliant on the fungicide metalaxyl, which we use against mildew. We're genuinely concerned that this might be removed from sale."

And there are also fears that new rules could deter manufacturers from developing new products. With changing methods of production (ie more use of tunnels), the changing climate and growing resistance to established products, growers always need new plant protection products. Hingley suggests that many manufacturers could drastically scale back new development. "It costs millions to get a product to the market. If manufacturers are facing the threat that their products could be banned at any time, they may not want to make this sort of investment," he says.

The problem could be made even worse, because the Commission wants all plant protection products to be surveyed regularly. This would mean that a review will occur at least once every seven years, which could even be increased to once every four years.

The purpose of these reviews is to enable officials to see if an active ingredient can be substituted with something safer. This would ensure that only the safest possible products were allowed to be used.

However, this proposal is bitterly opposed by many chemical companies, because they claim that their products could easily be removed from the market before they had a chance to recoup their investment.

The entire process of putting these proposals into law is expected to be finished by the early part of next year. In the meantime, the various lobby groups are encouraging growers to write to their MPs and MEPs. The Pesticides Safety Directorate, the Horticultural Development Company and the NFU are all currently involved in discussions. Most growers accept that there are public concerns about pesticides, but believe that drastic bans could be harmful to both growers and consumers.

However, despite Europe's pesticide reviews, growers are still able to make use of the large number of new plant protection products for fruit, vegetables and potatoes that have been released on the market this year. Some of these are completely new, others have been re-registered, while yet others have been given specific off-label approval (SOLA) so they can be used on a wider variety of plants.

Signum, for example, is a widely used fungicide manufactured by BASF and intended primarily for protected crops. It has now been given approval for use on asparagus against rust and other fungal infections, and also for the control of white rot on onions and garlic.

Some products have won approval for a wide variety of uses. SBM Developpement has got approval for the product Toppel 100EC to be used against a wide variety of insects, including asparagus beetle, cutworm on carrots and parsnips, and pests on herbs and salad plants.

Other products have been re-registered for use. BASF has supported the re-registration of the key ingredient iprodione, which is used in its new fungicide, Rovral WG. The re-registration process means that the uses of the product have changed: it is no longer supported for use on cereals, broccoli, outdoor tomatoes and stubble turnips, but it can still be used on onions, lettuce, berries, many brassicas and even ornamental pot plants.

Certis has also been active in winning approval for a number of its products. Floramite, which is designed to attack mites, was recently approved for use in the UK on strawberries, raspberries and other plants.

Another Certis product, Zin Zan - which helps the uptake of potato blight spray - has now been cleared for use at any stage of crop development.

Products at risk

The Crop Protection Association has drawn up a list of products that could be banned if the European Union pushes through the new regulations. The list includes some common products:

- Insecticides - pyrethroids, carbamates, organophosphates and most neonicotinoids

- Fungicides - triazoles, dithio-carbamates and some strobilurins

- Herbicides - some may be affected

PRODUCTS FOR VEGETABLE CROPS THAT HAVE BEEN GIVEN SOLAS IN THE PAST SIX
MONTHS

Name Company Date SOLA Crops Type of
expires product

Stomp BASF 31 Dec 2013 Dwarf French and Herbicide
400sc navy beans
Defy Syngenta 31 Dec 2013 Spring onions Herbicide
Signum BASF 30 Sep 2013 Asparagus, onions, Fungicide
shallots, garlic
Rubigan Gowan 30 Jun 2009 Peppers and Fungicide
tomatoes
Tracer DowAgro 30 Apr 2013 Protected and Insecticide
Sciences outdoor herbs (wide
variety), salad
leaves (wide variety),
chard, spinach, spinach
beet
Cadou Bayer 30 Sep 2013 Outdoor sweetcorn Herbicide
Star
Toppel SBM 28 Feb 2011 Protected and outdoor Insecticide
100EC Devel- herbs (wide variety),
oppement salad leaves (wide
variety), outdoor
asparagus, carrots,
parsnips, broad beans
Headland Headland 31 Dec 2011 Brassicas (wide variety), Fungicide
Inorganic Agro- salads (wide variety),
Liquid chemicals chard, onions, garlic,
Copper leeks, watercress,
hazelnut, cobnut, walnut
Laser BASF 31 Dec 2013 Broad bean/podded peas, Herbicide
runner beans, turnips
Fusilade Syngenta 31 Dec 2013 Outdoor cabbage, chicory, Herbicide
Max asparagus, globe artichoke