You may recall that back at the end of 2008 the NFU responded on behalf of the industry to a European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) consultation looking at pesticide emissions from protected crop systems. Very basically this EFSA work is about answering the question ‘what is the risk of a PPP, applied in a protected crop system, moving out into, and impacting on, the wider environment?’
You can see our briefing here and read our resulting consultation response here.
The eventual outcome of this work could be a particular set of ‘requirements’ for PPPs used in protected crop systems. So clearly it is important we have input to ensure any future policy outputs of this work are based on robust evidence.
We are now seeing the next phase of this work – a quick survey of protected cropping situations to provide EFSA with more detail.
Researchers at Campden BRI have won the EFSA contract to survey the Central Zone, and will be surveying growers in the UK, Netherlands, Hungary and Poland. They will be looking at
- all protected crops, both edible and ornamental
- structures
- growing methods
- methods of pesticide application
- irrigation and ventilation
One of the fundamental questions posed by this work is ‘What is a ‘protected crop system’? For the purposes of the initial consultation it included the following constructions; greenhouse, glasshouse, low tunnel, plastic shelter, shading net or shading house, walk-in tunnel. And it also considered ‘lower priority’ constructions including; buildings for growing chicory and mushroom (and presumably rhubarb), plastic covers for soil fumigation, protective netting for fruit crops, handling and storage facilities and containers in which gassing, fumigation etc takes place.
For the purposes of the initial consultation, crop mulching and row covering in open field crops (typically vegetables) with fleece were not considered to be protected cropping. However, for the purposes of this new survey, questions are being asked about protection applied directly to the soil, including plastic covers and mulching. EFSA feel that they want to include information to that level of detail in this study, in order to obtain a complete picture of current practice.
In the UK, Campden BRI researchers have teamed-up with the NFU to help them contact growers and stakeholders and roll out the simple online survey questionnaire. The intention is for the questionnaire to be made available sometime in March for growers and other industry stakeholders to complete. The NFU and other stakeholders will let growers know when the questionnaire is ready.
It is important for as many growers and industry stakeholders as possible to respond to the questionnaire as this will ensure a robust evidence base is provided, to direct future policy decisions.
No comments have been made.