December 19, 2008
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… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
Professor John Lucas, Head of the Plant Pathology and Microbiology Department at Rothamsted Research in the UK, was recently in Brussels to hand in a petition to MEPs that was signed by 72 scientists and agriculturists. The petition warns that the loss of pesticides could lead to serious problems of resistance in key crops in… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
December 11, 2008
When I attended the Agriculture and Rural Development Committee of the European Parliament with colleagues on Monday to give evidence the question of an EU-wide impact assessment of the 91/414 revisions was again raised. The Commission response was that they had undertaken an impact assessment in 2006. However, this impact assessment is widely considered to… » read more
Posted by Wyn Grant
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Environment, European Regulation, Events, Farming, Food and Health |
December 9, 2008
We recently had the opportunity to talk to Richard Davis, Director of Approvals, from the UK’s Pesticides Safety Directorate (PSD) just a few days before the Directorate issued a revised impact assessment on the proposed revisions to existing pesticide legislation (Directive 91/414/EEC). PSD received a fair amount of criticism for its first report so we… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
December 5, 2008
This week a pesticide-resistance petition, signed by 72 scientists and agriculturists, was presented to the European Parliament. The scientists are concerned that revisions to the existing European pesticide legislation which includes reducing the number of pesticides on the market could lead to pests developing resistances to remaining products. The scientists say that fewer active ingredients… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
November 18, 2008
Aspects of UK pesticides policy in the UK will require reconsideration after Mr Justice Collins allowed an application in the High Court from campaigner Georgina Downs for a review of current policy. She has argued that exposure to crop chemicals caused illness. The judge said: ‘I recognise that it is not easy to attribute a… » read more
Posted by Wyn Grant
Last week, we visited Pekka Pesonen, Secretary-General of Copa-Cogeca, the European association for farmers and farmers’ co-operatives, operating in Brussels. In the first video, you’ll hear Pekka speaking about farmers’ views of the revision of the pesticides regulation, the difficulty in ensuring that imports have been subjected to the same conditions as products from within… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
At the Pesticides in Sustainable Agriculture event (see previous entries below), we spoke to Pieter de Pous of the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), which is a federation of 140+ environmental organisations based all over Europe. We asked for his take on the day’s event from the perspective of his organisation. Although Pieter does not strictly… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
November 6, 2008
Post the voting yesterday by the European Parliament’s Environment committee on the revision of pesticide legislation, industry, NGOs and politicians have all been quick to voice their opinions on this major milestone. As usual, EurActiv has made an excellent summary of events: Pesticides: Tough negotiations ahead after MEPs’ ban, which I recommend reading. Plus I… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
October 31, 2008
At the event we recently attended in southern Spain (see entries below), we asked two journalists, one from the trade press publication, Editorial Agricola Española, and the other from the press agency, EFE, how the issue of the revision of the European pesticides regulation, Directive 91/414, was being dealt with by the Spanish press. Click… » read more
Posted by Helen Dunnett
The content of this blog is taken from pesticideinformation.eu, which offers a number of resources to learn more about pesticides and to better understand the arguments for and against them.
