Growers' Technical Meeting

02 March 2009

Growers attending Branston Ltd’s third annual Technical Meeting were told that changes to the EU Directive (91/414) governing pesticide use could have been a lot worse, but the industry still needs to plan ahead and embrace integrated pest and farm management.

Addressing an audience of over 50 growers at the EPIC Centre in Lincoln, David Payne, Senior Registration Manager for Syngenta Crop Protection UK said that whilst there was cause for optimism, the changes to legislation will still have a significant impact in the UK. “We initially thought that if a pesticide triggered one criteria, it would be banned,” explained Mr Payne. “However, the revision 91/414 sees pesticides banned if they trigger two out of three criteria. At one point it looked like we would lose about 85% of the 267 agricultural pesticides on the EU approved list, but this will not be the case.

“I believe that changes under the new regulation will actually be beneficial to the UK agricultural industry. It will encourage new zonal authorisation and mutual recognition, parallel trade rules to be clarified, clearer timelines, and additional data protection for minor users.

“The Sustainable Use Directive is also a good thing for growers, as it mandates good practice at user level, and helps to reduce risk. It encourages improvements in terms of training, inspection, storage and use, which can only be beneficial in the long term,” adds Mr Payne.

Mr Payne went on to praise the work undertaken by the NFU, saying that it had helped make the situation a lot better.

Chairing the meeting, Dr Andy Barker, R&D Manager at Branston, echoed Mr Payne’s sentiments but also urged growers to become more proactive in terms of adopting a forward-thinking approach to pest and disease control in light of the new regulations. “All of us should start implementing and exploring alternative pest and disease control given the introduction of the new EU regulation. As no one knows what the future holds, we need to start planning further ahead than we have previously been used to. Reactive management simply isn’t sustainable,” said Dr. Barker.

“Integrated Pest Management is the future. It is more complicated that current farm management, as it requires more planning, monitoring, knowledge and understanding, but it has numerous long-term benefits, including creating more robust plants and better soil conditions. It also ticks a lot of environmental boxes,” continued Dr. Barker.

As well as the EU legislation and advice on Integrated Pest Management, attendees also heard best practice guidance on crop storage, nutrition and the impact of climate change.

In total, the Technical Meeting comprised eight presentations, with six external speakers invited to join Dr Barker and Dr Nelson. As well as Branston, delegates also heard from Darryl Shailes from Hutchinsons; Richard Miles of Biofresh; Dr. Mark Allison of CUF; Richard Meredith of Bayer CropScience; and Dr. David Kenyon from SASA.

The day of presentations, which all contributed to Continuous Professional Development towards BASIS qualification, were well received by the growers in the audience. Peter Harriman, Farm Manager for AE Godfrey and Son said: “It was an excellent day and think it was great that Branston arranged for so many experts to come and talk to us. The presentations certainly give us hope that the changes made by Brussels may be better than we previously thought.”

Martin Stothard, Senior Field Manager at Branston organised the event and was pleased with how the day went, “This was the third time we’ve staged a Technical Meeting and this one was the best. We attracted more growers than last year and the calibre of speakers was fantastic. I think everyone who came will have left learning something and feeling much better about the future.”