The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP

Secretary of State for DEFRA

1st August 2018

Dear Michael,

New analysis of UK pesticide use, based on official government statistics, reveals a deeply worrying upwards trend. For example, the average number of pesticide applications per field in Great Britain rose from 9.8 in 1990 to a staggering 17.4 in 2015. You’ll be aware that the number of potential honeybee deaths rose six fold in same period.

Whilst the EU has one of the most robust regulatory regimes in the world for controlling pesticide use, the precautionary principle needs to be consistently and routinely being applied to prevent harmful chemicals from being approved for use in our countryside. Ian Boyd, Defra’s chief scientists, recently admitted “The current assumption underlying pesticide regulation—that chemicals that pass a battery of tests in the laboratory or in field trials are environmentally benign when they are used at industrial scales—is false” (Milner & Boyd 2017).

As a result, there is wide spread contamination of our soils, hedgerows, rivers and ponds. All farmland wildlife is being chronically exposed to a complex mixture of pesticides, the effects of which simply cannot be predicted. Our food supply is equally contaminated and we have no real understanding of the long term effects of humans being exposed from conception onwards to a toxic cocktail of pesticides in our food and drink. 

Given the Government’s stated commitment to protecting and enhancing our natural environment, please can you confirm whether eliminating pesticide use is a departmental priority for DEFRA and whether the precautionary principle will underpin policy going forward. I am also calling on you to do the following:

•         Set a target for a 50% reduction in both the weight of pesticides used and the number of pesticide applications per field by 2022 (France and Denmark have recently set clear reduction targets of 50% and 40%, respectively).

•         Introduce a pesticide tax (Denmark recently did so, the tax representing 34-55% of sale price).

•         Use revenue from the pesticide tax to fund an independent advisory service for farmers, with on-farm field trials to test effectiveness of pesticide reduction measures / alternatives to pesticides.

•         Set a target for 20% of UK farmland to be organic (or in conversion) by 2022, supported by diverting existing ‘pillar one’ area-based farm subsidies.

•         Ban glyphosate, with a time-limited derogation for use in no-till farming systems until alternative weed control methods are developed.

•         Make all records of pesticide use transparent and open access, so that anyone can see what pesticides are used on each field (at present farmers are obliged to record these data but they are never made public).

•         Make cities/towns/villages pesticide free (as has happened in many cities abroad, such as Toronto).

•         Ban all non-agricultural uses of pesticides (e.g. for use in gardens and parks).

•         Ban neonicotinoids from use as flea treatments on pets or as ant baits (this is not covered by the new EU ban).

•         Labelling of fresh produce: all fruit and veg to be labelled with the pesticides used in their cultivation. If it is not practical to put such labels on every items, it should be listed on the company website.

Yours sincerely,