Ethylene is the latest “pesticide” to have the wieldy European Commission axe waved menacingly above its head. The fresh produce industry is no stranger to the baffling categorisation of its most important tools by Brussels, but to list a naturally occurring gas as a pesticide is right up there with the worst of them.

The EC will of course say that it has the safety of the European consumer at heart; that its regulatory commitments must extend as far as possible in order to ensure that the supply chain for the food eaten within this continent is beyond reproach.

Fair enough. But, by placing the onus to prove the safety of chemicals, or natural gases, so firmly on an industry that needs those products to remain viable, the EC has created a black hole. Chemical companies, producers, suppliers and their customers have all so far flatly refused to invest the money necessary to get ticks placed in the right boxes.

They would mostly argue that they don’t need to. The Maximum Residue Level system for pesticides appears to work and it is unnecessary to spend the tens of thousands of pounds required to prove the safety of a particular product when it has never been shown to endanger human life or the environment.

Political meddlers in Brussels are not going to foot the bill. But ethylene gives us the latest proof that they should at least understand whether or not what they are demanding actually needs to be done. Why not do some top-line research of the products on an individual basis before centrally and arbitrarily putting them all into one, loosely defined category and disregarding the potential commercial consequences?