DAVID RICHARDSON
DAVID RICHARDSON
Pesticides are a vital
part of our production
armoury, but if we are
careless or overuse
them we may be
burdened with a tax to
add to their cost
I probably shouldnt admit it, but if there is one group of arable inputs I rely on more than any other it is pesticides, albeit in ever declining quantities and toxicity. I would not like to be without bag fertilisers either. But I might be able to make alternative arrangements to maintain soil fertility, whereas I could not replace what pesticides do. Not at an affordable price anyway. Incidentally I rather wish we called them Plant Protection Products, or PPPs, as they do in some other countries. The language is more friendly and in my view describes what they do more accurately.
Yet, as conventional and integrated farmers know only too well, these most vital ingredients in the production armoury, on which economic yield and saleable quality often depend, cause the greatest criticism among our customers. Never mind that most of todays PPPs are less dangerous than many prescription drugs, they have heard so many horror stories that they believe them to be true. Some are even prepared to pay 50% to 70% more for organic produce to avoid them, blithely unaware that organic production permits the use of a limited range of old chemicals. Once again the truth becomes buried beneath what consumers believe, and that is what counts these days it seems.
Meanwhile 97%, or thereabouts, of the rest of us continue to eat products which the 3% allege are drenched in dreadful pesticides. Yet most of us are living longer than people have ever lived before. Why else would pension fund administrators find it so difficult to deliver their promises?
Be that as it may, the customer is always right. And it makes good environmental, business and marketing sense to minimise applications of PPPs to crops. For if we do not, or if we are careless in those applications, we may find ourselves paying a tax on their use on top of the prices charged by suppliers. And it appears our industry and its sprayer operators are taking that message to heart. The last available figures – for the year to Mar 2001 – indicate that the number of complaints about the use of pesticides fell by 31%. Similarly the number of people who believed they had been made ill by PPPs was well down on the year before.
All of which means the Crop Protection Association (formerly the British Agrochemical Association) the NFU and others have been able to persuade the government that a voluntary approach is best, and farmers that they must improve their performance if a tax is to be avoided. But we sit at present on a political tightrope and with the spring spraying season starting it is vital we all remember the potential seriousness of failing to enhance our pollution performance. For if the industry as a whole does not deliver a record of continuous improvement, Gordon Brown will impose a tax that low prices mean we cannot afford.
The biggest bogeys, the water companies, are seeking to eliminate what is known as diffuse pollution. The sort of thing that happens when you are filling up the sprayer in the farmyard and you spill a few drops of concentrated chemical on the concrete beside the water tank. That kind of spillage can cause enormous damage to fish stocks and costs the water companies a lot to filter out. All it takes to avoid such problems is a little care, which adds little or nothing to costs. Against current returns every penny of cost has to be examined and eliminated if at all possible.
One cost still being borne on many farms is that for agronomy services. Whether we pay for it with the agrochemical or as a separate independent service we are probably paying up to £10/ha for cereals and more for other crops. Now I am not saying we can all do without specialist advice. But there may be ways to cut that charge by having fewer field walking visits, but still maintaining access to phone advice.
The number of BASIS qualified farmers and farm managers is increasing every year. And although, in a complicated and ever-changing world, it may be unreasonable for them to undertake the entire responsibility for diagnosis and treatment, their knowledge, combined with occasional expert help can cut costs.
The latest aid to those with ambitions in that direction is a CD produced by the British Crop Protection Council. Called IdentiPest it contains more than 1000 pictures together with information on a wide range of crop pests and diseases commonly found on 34 crops grown in the UK.
In other words it is a concise encyclopaedia of almost all the information a crop walker needs to identify any problem that may be found, which I have always found to be the difficult bit. For it is then easy and cheap to pick up the phone to your adviser to check on the most appropriate remedy.
The CD is also simple to use, even for me with my limited IT skills. It will certainly be kept handy in this farm office. Copies can be obtained from BCPC Publication Sales, Bear Farm, Binfield, Bracknell, Berkshire RG42 5QE. Price £35 + VAT (students £30 inc VAT).