According to the Guardian newspaper, the Expert Committee on Pesticides was told by Defra to postpone publication of minutes after refusing to back an NFU request to use banned neonicotinoids on oil seed rape.
On Thursday Defra lifted the ban on use of the controversial neonicotinoid pesticides on oil seed rape seeds on an area of 5% of the crop for the next 120 days.
The NFU London office is handily placed next door to Defra in the Kings Building, Smith Square.
NFU Vice President Guy Smith said: “We have been working with the suppliers to better understand how the neonicotinoid seed treatments will be made available after the NFU secured the emergency use authorisation to provide much needed protection from the pest cabbage stem flea beetle.
As we know the amount of product available will be to treat five per cent of the oilseed rape crop in England amounting to around 30,000ha. The NFU understands that four counties will be allocated treated seed. They are Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. This has been based on the evidence presented to the Expert Committee on Pesticides and official data which showed these counties were the worst affected by flea beetle damage in the 2014/15 season.
We understand the emergency authorisations will apply to certified seed only and there will be strict stewardship agreements in place governing its use. It is important to have the details finalised so that farmers know how they can access this treated seed.”
As an oilseed rape grower who suffered flea beetle damage last year but who farms in Essex, a county not in the four chosen counties, I can fully understand the frustration of those growers who will not have access to neonicotinoid seed dressings this year when trying to establish crops. However, I realise that if we are to lobby in the future for a return to the situation where all growers can benefit from this technology then getting a few thousand acres of oilseed rape sown with neonicotinoid seed dressings will help demonstrate their importance for all of us.”
[registration_form]
A solution to damage by the flea beetle was put forward a while back. They mix the rapeseed with a species of clover. The beetle larvae prefer this to the rapeseed and attack that instead. The clover has other benefits to out pollinators. It’s simple….. But hang on!!!!!
….. I don’t know of many clover seed providers who are multi national, multi billion turnover, FTSE/NASDAQ listed companies with friends in high places.
The USA have the NRA; We have the NFU. Bloody unions holding this country to ransom. We need tougher laws to restrict union powers. If Jeremy Corbyn needs any pointers on how to be influenced by unions he should take heed from Mrs Truss.
(Footnote: Tounge in cheek from this lefty, tree hugger etc etc. I’m proud of that)
The drift back to MAFF continues apace. What we need now is an Environment Department. In the meantime, it is worth remembering that Mrs Truss’ instructions remain the same ‘don’t make trouble’ so it is worth the comment & objection – especially when alternatives are available.
The NFU, an unelected quango, made up primarily of bankers and city of london financiers, setting government policy on the environment, and totally unaccountable to the British electorate. Given this abuse of our political system, why on earth have all our governments, of every political colour, allowed this to happen?
I had a chuckle whilst reading the Eastern Daily Press today. Someone actually has a job title of “NFU Environment Advisor”! Pretty easy I would imagine: “Kill, Destroy, irreversibly damage, poison, get a subsidy for it”.
Love the cartoon, many a true word spoken in jest. As a retired scientist I despair at the stupidity and ignorance of a government that presumes to ignore all inconvenient scientific advice and treat those giving it with contemp. Doesn’t matter whether it is global warming, badgers, pollinators, raptor persecution, fox hunting the short-term debt paying to their supporters is paramount. Sod the environment and wildlife, short and long-term damage to it is discarded for sectarian interests. Even more sad is that this rape protection is a worthless decision for a largely irrelevant crop. It is a non-essential in the food chain and has been in oversupply in recent years (or so my local farmers tell me). In Truss we appear to have the most malleable and supine DEFRA head ever. Clearly the Osbourne instruction is to keep the supporters happy. The farming community receive the largest social security handout’s going (under the guise of the CAP) and their only interest is in maximising the size of these payments. The damage that our current over-cropped monoculture where yields are driven ever upwards by use of chemicals, will lead to long-term impoverishment of the soil. However the consequences of this are ignored for short-term votes and cash. As always there are exceptions to this behaviour but when I look at the farming practices surrounding me, I can pick out few of those, with one outstanding and award winning example only. When it all goes wrong the scientists, of course, will be to blame not the politicians and their paymasters.
0pen your eyes folks fact is general public which all of you are members of trash more land and environment than those you are so critical of who provide you with your food.
Some ex scientist even connects farmers with raptor persecution and fox hunting,how that connection stands up being talked about by a scientist beggars belief.
It’s interesting that the NFU feels the need to reintroduce a banned pesticide to boost the yield of oilseed rape at a time when the Farmers Weekly is reporting there is no problem with yields: Farmers Weekly, Tuesday 14 July 2015 –
“Hopes are rising for above-average oilseed rape yields after a generally good growing season… Crop experts expect yields to be higher than the five-year average of 3.5t/ha after a cool and dry spring and early summer – which was good for growth – and a low-disease year.” The article in full can be found via this link: http://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/good-yields-expected-oilseed-rape-harvest-set-kick-off.htm#.VbMxP70f39Q.mailto
So who are telling the truth, the farmers who, while neonics are banned, say yields are good or the farmers that say they can’t make a living without neonics?
Suggest Dennis Amesbury retreats my comment. The reference he believes refers to farmers was in fact referring to the government /DEFRA.
Apologies to Dennis for mis-spelling his name, damn small screens and predictive text. Should have read “Suggest Dennis Ames re-reads my comment. The reference he believes refers to farmers was in fact a reference to the government/DEFRA”
Ian,apologise but your comment in general did seem to me a anti farmer comment and I did miss that a part of it was anti government.
No need to apologise for mis-spelling my name it is so easily done.
I listened to Guy Smith talking on Radio Four’s Today programme this week, and the level of debate was truly depressing. The argument he made went something like this: there is no evidence of pollinator decline, because there are still lots of domestic honeybee hives on my farm. The science on the effects of neonics can be ignored because much wasn’t conducted in field conditions. Anyway, neonics are good for honeybees, because it allows farmers to plant oilseed rape, which produces flowers that give bees something to feed on.
None of this was challenged in the interview. Boom, science!
There is so much wrong with this that it’s hard to know where to start. There is plenty of evidence of pollinator declines in the literature, both around the world and specifically in Britain. Moreover, it is wild species (bees and other insects) that are the main pollinators of crops. Domestic honeybees only act to supplement the pollination service provided by bumblebees, solitary bees, hoverflies, and a range of other species. There is growing evidence for lethal and sub-lethal effects of neonics on wild pollinators, and these are acting with habitat loss, disease and possibly climate change to put pollinating insects under stress. Because these stressors act separately and together, and because the environment is now so contaminated by neonics, it’s actually really hard to set up rigorously controlled field trials. In these circumstances, and given how little we still know, it makes no sense to make the situation worse by allowing further use of neonics now.
Guy Smith is clearly an intelligent man – he has a very responsible job as vice president of the NFU after all. I genuinely can’t understand why he cannot look at the evidence and come to the same conclusions. It’s not as as if his members don’t rely on these insects for their livelihoods.