Reducing our dependence on
chemical pesticides
Clare Butler Ellis
UK and Europe programme coordinator
Reducing our dependence on
chemical pesticides
• How dependent are we?
• Why is pesticide dependence a
problem?
• What can we do?
• The challenges that need to be
addressed
How dependent are we on
chemical pesticides?
Tonnes of active ingredient applied
to agricultural land
38000
tonnes ai
36000
34000
32000
30000
28000
26000
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
Pesticide usage survey, CSL
pesticide(g ai) per kg cereals
0.7
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
pesticide (kg ai) per ha cereals
4.1
3.9
g/ha
g/kg
0.6
3.7
3.5
3.3
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
pesticide (g ai) per kg orchard fruit
1.35
1.3
1.2
1.15
1.1
1.05
1
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
pesticide (kg ai) per ha orchard
13.5
13
12.5
kg/ga
g/kg
1.25
12
11.5
11
10.5
10
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
Industry sales - CPA
Pesticide Forum, Indicators report 2005
Alternatively managed land 2005
Organic
• 4,443,000 ha crops in UK
• 72,000 ha organic crops – 1.6%
Integrated Pest Management
• 18.5 million ha agricultural land in UK
• >100 000 ha farmed to LeafMarque
standards – 0.5%
Source: Defra, Leaf
How dependent are we?
• CPA: “Farmers need pesticides to help them
protect their crops from pests, fungi and weeds so
they can provide the quantity and quality of food
we need that is safe to eat”.
• ECPA: “Many people are familiar with the popular
arguments against crop protection products, but
few are aware of how these same products keep
their food safe”.
• PRC: “Pests, weed and diseases can all have
devastating effects on the quantity and quality of
crops grown for human consumption and without
pesticides we could lose one third of world crops
each year”
How dependent are we?
Implication is that without pesticides
• our food will be unsafe
• There will not be enough food
As a consequence
• The vast majority of our food and our agricultural
land has pesticides applied
We need to remember that
pest management ≠ chemical pesticides
Why is our dependence on
chemicals a problem?
Pesticide problems:
• Pesticides deliberately made to be toxic and
released into the environment
• Present in the environment, food, water and our
bodies
• Responsible for environmental damage, particularly
loss of biodiversity
• Have known, well documented acute health effects
• Increasing evidence of a link between low level
exposure and disease
¾Pesticide use is incompatible with sustainable
agriculture
What’s the evidence?
Environmental damage
• Declining farmland birds
– organic farms have 44 per cent more birds in
fields
Population trends for 3 farmland birds
Pesticide Forum indicators report 2005
What’s the evidence?
Environmental damage
• Declining farmland birds
– organic farms have 44 per cent more birds in fields
• Declining plant species and invertebrates
– e.g. declining pollinating bees and pollinationdependant wildflowers
– organic farms have more than five times as many wild
plants
• Soil biodiversity?
• Aquatic biodiversity?
Not all attributable directly to pesticides, but to
intensive agriculture, of which pesticides are an
inextricable part
Human Health
• Reports of incidents to PIAP – 70 people alleged
to have suffered ill health
– Only 5 unrelated to pesticides
• HSE also recorded one accidental death
(paraquat)
• Alleged Ill health also reported to
– AgChem companies (177 cases)
– Local authorities (PAN UK survey: 20 replies out of 468
L.A.s – 11 cases)
– National Poisons Information Service (426 cases with
symptoms, including 2 deaths)
– PAN UK (16 cases)
– Others?
Chronic ill health
Evidence is growing for a link with
pesticides:
• Parkinson’s disease
• Cancer – especially prostate cancer and
breast cancer
Too poorly understood to be able to make
connections:
• Multiple chemical sensitivity/ME
• Other chronic diseases
Problems of pesticides
• Too great to ignore
• Too uncertain to be controllable
What can we do?
Current trends
• Address symptoms of pesticides in the
environment, rather than the route cause
• Mitigate, rather than eliminate, pesticide
impacts
• Voluntary, rather than compulsory,
behaviour changes
Increasing cost ¾ Increasing burden on farmers, in time, admin,
education and cost
¾ Increasing regulatory measures & policy
initiatives
¾ EU thematic strategy
¾ National strategy
¾ Voluntary initiative
¾ Water framework directive
¾ Biodiversity actions
¾ Public health – RCEP
¾ Recording and reporting
¾ Residue reduction
Adressing the root cause of pesticide impacts
– the high levels of use – will be a more
efficient use of resources
Pesticide impacts =
pesticide hazard x quantity of pesticide used
x proportion off-target
Reductions in the hazard and the quantity are
needed as well as reductions in off-target
proportion
What can we do?
• Eliminate the most hazardous pesticides
• Implement a use reduction policy
• Record where, which, how much and
why pesticides are used
• Promote more sustainable pest
management
The challenges
Alternatives to chemical pesticides
Research and development
• $2.2 billion per annum spent on conventional
pesticides
Registration
• Currently too expensive for niche market
products and inappropriate for non-chemical
products
Education and advice
• 70% of arable land has advice from ag-chem
industry
Alternatives to chemical pesticides
Economic incentives
• Pesticides cheap and easy
• Agri-environment schemes don’t
currently help redress balance
• Pesticide tax rejected
• Additional cost cannot be passed on to
consumer
Conclusions
• Many drivers for moving away from
chemical pesticides
• Huge inertia
• Alternatives are not readily available
– Few commercially-available products
– More expensive
– More labour-intensive
– More knowledge needed
– Incentives essential