UK body warns against lifting ban

The Soil Association has warned the government against withdrawing its ban on the pesticide aminopyralid

The UK-based Soil Association has sharply criticised the UK government’s decision to consider reinstating aminopyralid, a pesticide which it says has caused huge amounts of damage to fruit and vegetable crops, and which was withdrawn from the market last year.

The Soil Association’s director, Patrick Holden, has written to Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), urging him to reject a recommendation from the Advisory Committee on Pesticides (ACP) to reinstate the use of aminopyralid.

ACP’s recommendation came, according to the Soil Association, following 'stewardship' proposals from Dow Agrosciences, the pesticide’s manufacturer, aimed at making use of the product safer. However, it says, the pesticide is still causing a wide range of crops to fail after its last permitted use in early 2008.

“This pesticide has not been reformulated, nor made safer in any other way,” says Mr Holden. “There is no evidence to show that the ‘stewardship’ proposals made by the company producing the pesticide, Dow AgroSciences, will work. The proposals – which include only selling the product in large containers to make it ‘too expensive for casual use’ – provide no guarantee that further damage can be prevented. Indeed, Hilary Benn already knows that this approach does not work. There were already guidelines in place to prevent the use of manure from land treated with aminopyralid from being used for vegetable growing, which did not stop serious contamination incidents from occurring.”

According to the Soil Association, when its use was last permitted the pesticide caused the failure of a wide range of crops including beans, peas, potatoes and tomatoes, soft fruits and flowers.

The Association has revealed its concern that such crop failures could discourage people in the UK from growing their own vegetables in gardens and allotments.