The Organic Growers’ Alliance (OGA) welcomes an EU Environment Committee vote on further restrictions of pesticide usage on fruit and vegetable crops.
The vote will be held on November 4. Adam York of the OGA said: “While the opposition from bodies such as the National Farmers’ Union, pesticide manufacturers and other flat earthers is regrettable, the opposition from Defra suggests less concern with public health than achieving complicity with the Agri-food Multi-Nationals.”
A statement from the OGA reads: “Recent opponents of the chemical restrictions have been alarmist, from forecasting UK starvation to vegetables being 30-100 per cent more expensive. While the vested interest of the proponents may damage some of these claims, the existence of organically certified crops for some decades now further weakens them.
"Price premiums for organic crops average at 10-30 per cent for vegetable crops and around 15-50 per cent for fruit crops, where the use of fungicides, particularly, prevails in the UK.”
York said: “Long-term yields look better on organically managed land than is widely realised, certainly better than many chemically based systems. The effective end of cheap nitrate fertilisers puts the fragile yields of much conventional production further in jeopardy and price differences have been narrowing of late.”
The OGA claimed: “The health cost of not removing toxic chemicals from the public diet is difficult to calculate but significant. Infertility, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, birth defects and water clean-up costs are all pesticide associated risks no sensible citizen would want to undertake. Reducing the risk at minimal cost seems prudent.”
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