Soil Association 'Rubbish' Pesticide Claims

The pesticide industry has put forward alarming claims about the effect of the pending EU legislation.
One of those claims was that carrot crops would be almost non existent if the legislation came into force. Other claims were that the harvest from potatoes would drop by up to 60%, the harvest of sugar beat will either cease totally or fall by 40%, wheat harvests would fall to 60% and the harvest of pea and onion would fall by 40%.

The Soil Association responded by citing the results of a research study conducted by the Centre for Agriculture Strategy at Reading University. The report revealed that in fact even more yield could be obtained from organic farming than with farming using the revised pesticide legislation due to be ratified by the EU. In fact the report claims that the use of pesticides under an organic farming system would drop by 98%.

The legislation will initiate a ban on several pesticides that heave been shown to be carcinogenic, toxic for reproduction or genotoxic, although there is a possibility for some of the pesticides that fall into these brackets to be in use for up to 5 years after the ban comes into force.

There is every chance that the bill will go through unchanged as it has the support of most of the member states and MEP's.

The World Health Organisation and UK Government recommend a diet that is high in whole grains, fruit and vegetables and a lot less meat. If this diet was adopted more comprehensively by people at large, the harvest of crops would be more than enough and would not require pesticide use.