The Wildlife Trusts has threatened to take legal action against the UK after it approved the emergency use of a banned pesticide for sugar beet crops.

Earlier this month, Defra approved an emergency application from the NFU for sugar beet growers to use a neonicotinoid seed treatment against virus yellows, which is spread by aphids and is a threat to emerging beet crops.

The authorisation is for the use of Syngenta’s Cruiser SB on sugar beet only and covers use in 2021 in England.

See also: How the emergency authorisation for neonics in beet will work

Defra said it recognised the “potential danger” posed to the beet crop by virus yellows, but added that use of the product will be “limited and controlled” and only if “there are special circumstances”.

The NFU welcomed the move, saying that some beet growers had experienced yield losses of up to 80% – and the authorisation was “desperately needed to fight this disease”.

EU permits

Similar emergency use authorisations for the use of neonicotinoid seed treatments on sugar beet have been granted in about a dozen EU countries, including France, Belgium and Germany, where crops have been ravaged by virus yellows.

In 2018, the EU banned the use of neonicotinoids on all outdoor crops after they were linked to harming pollinators such as bees and other insects.

But the Wildlife Trusts said its lawyers had contacted Defra secretary George Eustice to question his decision to allow the use of a banned pesticide.

The charity said it believes the action may have been unlawful and it was planning a legal challenge unless the government could prove otherwise.

‘Threat to bees’

Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, said: “The government refused a request for emergency authorisation in 2018 and we want to know what’s changed. Where’s the new evidence that it’s OK to use this extremely harmful pesticide?

“Using neonicotinoids not only threatens bees, but is also extremely harmful to aquatic wildlife because the majority of the pesticide leaches into soil and then into waterways.

“Worse still, farmers are being recommended to use weedkiller to kill wildflowers in and around sugar beet crops in a misguided attempt to prevent harm to bees in the surrounding area. This is a double blow for nature.”

Sugar beet growers will be planting this crop in the next few weeks and the charity is seeking a response from Mr Eustice “as a matter of urgency”.

A Defra spokesman said: “Emergency authorisations for pesticides are only granted in exceptional circumstances where diseases or pests cannot be controlled by any other reasonable means.”