Potential pesticide product removals through
theWater
Framework Directivecould cost UK cereal and
oilseed rape growers over £500m a year - and that's just from
losses due to blackgrass,a new ADAS reportsuggests.
While the Environment Agency has stressed it wants to use
voluntary approaches where possible to overcome issues with certain
pesticides in water, there remains the possibility that if all
other measures fail, severe restrictions or bans might be put in
place.
It is this eventuality the
ADAS team, led by James
Clarke, have investigated for the
HGCA, along with the impact of the new
EU
pesticides approval legislation agreed earlier this year.
The key findings in the review are that
pesticide product losses because of the Water Framework
Directive would have a much greater financial impact on UK
growers than losing the pesticides under threat from the new
approvals regulations, and that weed control would be hit
hardest.
Actives that were either used at high rates or on large areas
were most at risk of breaching the directive's ecological or
chemical water standards, Mr Clarke explained at a HGCA briefing
last week.
Potential legislation costs to UK growers  | | |
|---|
| | Pesticides Approval revision | Water Framework Directive |
| Blackgrass | £185m | £529m |
| Ryegrass | £22.4m | £204m |
| Septoria tritici | £16.2m | £57.3m |
| Slugs | £0m | £49.3m |
That captured several key herbicides, particularly residuals, which
tended to be applied in relatively large doses directly to the soil
and worked most effectively in moist conditions, he pointed
out.
The loss of key oilseed rape herbicides - metazachlor,
propyzamide and carbetamide - would cost growers nearly £90m a year
through the loss of blackgrass control, the report estimated.
More blackgrass would come through into wheat crops as a result,
Mr Clarke suggested. That, coupled with the loss of glyphosateand
the associated difficulties cleaning up seed-beds prior to
drilling, and chlorotoluron meant there would need to be more
ploughing and later drilling of wheat crops.
In total, ADAS estimated growers would lose more than £350m in
wheat through blackgrass.That compared with £150m, mostly because
of the loss of pendimethalin, from changes in approvals
criteria.
The potential loss of key triazole fungicides under that
legislation would, in contrast, have a relatively small impact -
costing the industry £16.2m in loss of septoria control.
"The key issue is how endocrine disruption is defined. If we
lose one or two triazoles it is not the end of the world. So we may
lose the first choice product, but others will be available, and
there will only be a small loss in control," Mr Clarke said.
RESEARCH IS NEEDED |
|---|
| The review should focus attention on the areas where more
research or better knowledge transfer is required to either prevent
product losses or to overcome their impact, Mr Clarke suggests in
the HGCA report.
"Protecting important active substances and finding ways of
ensuring their continued availability should be a priority," he
says. Among the priorities should be to investigate the routes through
which pesticides reach water and their relative importance for
different pesticide groups, and developing better predictions of
future weed, pest or disease risks. Weed control research also needed to be a priority, he said at
the briefing. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see there
are more disease projects currently than in weed science." Projects that should be considered included improving prediction
of how much weed control was actually needed across the rotation
and to identify new opportunities for weed control in oilseed
rape. |