Spiralling development costs and restrictive new EU legislation on pesticide approvals together pose a serious threat to the future availability of vital crop protection products to Europe’s farmers and growers.

Many industry groups are warning that over the next decade, this combination of factors could lead to a crop protection crunch, with more products being removed from the market than can be replaced, leaving producers without effective tools to manage the many pests and diseases that reduce crop yields and damage food quality. As governments around the world focus on the need to increase food production, the crop protection crunch could have a devastating global impact far beyond the recent banking and financial crisis.

The facts speak for themselves. To feed a growing world population, we need to increase food production by 50 per cent over the next 20 years, in the face of climate change and increased scarcity of land and water. Yet without pesticides to keep weeds, pests and diseases in check, crop yields would fall by a third.

According to a recent study, excessive regulation and bureaucracy in the development and registration of new pesticide products in Europe is the main factor driving up the cost of innovation in the crop protection sector.

Agribusiness consultant Phillips McDougall found that over the past decade, the costs associated with bringing a new pesticide to market in the EU have increased by a staggering 68.4 per cent to almost £190 million, taking an average of 9.8 years from initial research to the authorisation of each new product.

Combined with the imminent removal of some 15-20 per cent of currently approved pesticide products and the scientific uncertainty associated with new cut-off criteria adopted in revised EU pesticide rules, the economic and regulatory climate for agrochemical R&D in Europe is increasingly difficult - a situation directly at odds with the EU’s Strategy 2020 commitment to “grow innovation”.

Mitigating the effects of the crop protection crunch demands concerted action at all levels of the food chain.

We must press our politicians to seek allies in Europe to convince the council to reopen discussions on the detailed implementation of the new pesticide approval system.

Securing agreement on the application of derogations via Qualified Majority Voting, rather than a unanimous council decision, for example, would provide an important safeguard for UK farmers and growers on the future availability of irreplaceable crop protection tools.

With the recent authorisation of the Amflora GM potato for cultivation in Europe - the first such approval for 12 years - there is some cause for optimism that the new EU Commission is more inclined to defend science-based decision-making.

At the same time, there is an urgent need to combat the routine demonisation of pesticides by campaign groups and NGOs that continues to influence the decisions of policy-makers.

The crop protection industry must learn from the mistakes of the past and put more focus and resources into communicating the value of pesticides at all levels of the food production process, from farm to fork. This should include bringing more experienced and talented communication professionals into the crop protection industry, at both a company and trade association level, and developing stronger links between farmers, food producers and retailers to support the importance of crop protection throughout the whole food chain.

Unless we take action to improve understanding of the benefits of crop protection, we can expect further restrictions in pesticide use that will have a devastating impact on agriculture and food production.

Dominic Dyer is chief executive of the Crop Protection Association