UK-EU negotiations are underway to determine how ‘dynamic alignment’ with EU rules will work under an SPS (Sanitary and Phytosanitary) agreement.
A common UK-EU SPS area should remove routine plant health border checks, which will provide relief from associated delays, damage and biosecurity risk for British growers importing young plants. Reduced friction for agri-food goods at the border will be enabled by the UK following EU requirements, including on pesticide availability, pesticide residues (known as MRLs – maximum residue levels), and biocides (eg, wood preservatives, disinfectants, rodenticides).
In November, officials asked the industry to consider a scenario where the UK follows EU requirements on pesticide availability and MRLs from June 2027, and highlight where this would and wouldn’t be possible. The Defra Call for Information, published on 9 March, makes clear the government’s intention for the SPS agreement to take effect in mid-2027, and has extended its scope to include biocides.
How we have diverged from the EU
To understand what this could mean for British farmers, we need to look at how we’ve diverged from the EU since Brexit, and how this could impact pesticides currently being used.
Benefits of alignment
In addition to reduced friction at the border, dynamic alignment with the EU could provide potential crop protection benefits for British farmers and growers:
- Potential access to more than 20 new active substances, mainly biopesticides, not available in Great Britain, and access to other EU pesticide products through a process called ‘mutual recognition’. The efficacy of these products has yet to be demonstrated in UK crops.
- Access to ‘level playing-field’ measures enjoyed by EU farmers, including free movement of seeds treated with pesticides, and parallel trade in pesticide products.
Risks of alignment
On the flip side, the NFU is building evidence of what negative impacts potential full alignment with EU requirements in June 2027 could have on the crop protection toolbox and crops, and on farmers’ use of biocides.
The NFU does not support the potential ‘hard stop’ to Great Britain’s decisions, and alignment with EU requirements, in June 2027. While we see the end goal is alignment, we believe the transition should be phased, so Great Britain’s decisions on pesticide and biocide availability are retained, until the UK government has the chance to represent UK farming in the EU decision-shaping process.
An analysis commissioned by CropLife UK and undertaken by The Andersons Centre, has shown a hard stop alignment with EU rules on pesticides could cost the arable, horticulture and sugar sectors between £500 million and £810 million in the first year of an SPS agreement.
We also expect any pesticides or biocides being withdrawn to be given reasonable use-up periods – the regulation normally allows 18 months. The NFU has been lobbying government hard on both these issues.
Crop protection areas at potential risk under a sudden alignment include:
- Loss of four new actives – cereal fungicides isoflucypram (eg, Vimoy) and pydiflumetofen (eg, Miravis Plus), and herbicides cinmethylin (eg, Luxinum Plus) and bixlozone (eg, Fundatis, Zimeri).
- Loss of 15 actives, no longer allowed in the EU, which are in more than 100 GB products for major crops, and 100 extensions of authorisation for many horticultural crops.
These actives (and some key uses) include:
| Active substance | Uses (O = can be used in organic production) |
| Bacillus firmus strain I-1582 | VOTiVO – nematicide seed treatment for fodder & sugar beet, forage & grain maize O |
| Benthiavalicarb | eg, Versilus and Zorvec Endavia – potato & onion fungicide |
| Clofentezine | eg, Apollo 50 SC – soft, cane and tree fruit, ornamentals, hops (propagation) acaricide |
| Dimethomorph | Many products – soft and cane fruit, lettuce, potato, onion family, herbs, ornamentals, grapes, hops – downy mildew fungicide |
| Dimoxystrobin | Pictor – oilseed rape fungicide |
| Flufenacet | Many products – cereals, bush fruit, ornamentals , asparagus, soya bean & hemp herbicide |
| Ipconazole | eg, Conima and Rancona - cereals fungicide seed treatment |
| Isopyrazam | eg, Prizm, Reflect – cereals, carrots & root veg, ornamentals, protected tomato, pepper, aubergine, cucumber, courgette, squashes & hemp (pharmaceutical) fungicide |
| Mepanipyrim | Frupica SC – strawberry, ornamentals, courgette, protected tomato, aubergine & cucumber fungicide |
| Metribuzin | Many products - potato, cereals, root veg, asparagus, ornamentals & bush fruit herbicide |
| Plant oils / Citronella oil | Amenity grassland herbicide |
| Prochloraz | eg, Artemis, Mirage, Monkey – cereals fungicide |
| S-Metolachlor | eg, Camix, Dual Gold – field veg, baby leaf, herbs, peas, beans, strawberry, ornamentals, sweetcorn, forage and grain maize herbicide |
| Spirotetramat | eg, Batavia, Movento – soft, bush and tree fruit, protected edibles, outdoor veg, grapes, ornamentals, sweetcorn, baby leaf and herbs insecticide |
| Triflusulfuron-methyl | eg, Debut, Safari, Shiro – sugar, fodder and red beet, chicory, ornamentals herbicide |
There is also the risk of further losses of actives from ongoing EU reviews, eg, the potato fungicide seed treatment flutolanil (eg, Moncut, Rhino); the protected ornamentals whitefly control buprofezin (Applaud); the fungicide fludioxonil – widely used as a cereals seed treatment and for many outdoor and protected horticultural crops; the sugar and fodder beet, outdoor ornamentals and herbs, and strawberry herbicide phenmedipham.
Having to follow the EU glyphosate approval, which prohibits pre-harvest use as a desiccant (but allows pre-harvest use for weed control), and restricts the total amount you can use in agriculture to 1.44 kg per ha, per year, is another potential risk, particularly for cereals and oilseed rape.
Many GB and EU MRLs have diverged since Brexit. EU MRLs would apply to both UK crop for export (to EU) and for domestic use. This could result in some current UK pesticide uses no longer being possible.
We also have serious concerns about potential situations where:
- Growers may have used pesticides on crops in autumn 2026/spring 2027, in full compliance with GB requirements, which then have residues of those pesticides not compliant with the EU MRLs we’re required to meet after June 2027.
- Crop still in store in June 2027, or crop that has been processed into long shelf-life food and drink goods, not meeting EU MRLs requirements after June 2027.
We’ve also questioned how government would support farmers to manage the pesticides in stores that no longer met requirements after June 2027.
Lastly, the Defra Call for Information stated, for the first time, that biocides are within scope of the SPS agreement. The NFU is working on what this could mean in terms of impacts on the availability of disinfectants, wood preservatives and rodenticides.
One significant area of UK-EU divergence is that agricultural uses of the wood preservative Creosote are no longer allowed in the EU. In 2024, the NFU responded to a HSE consultation on the future of Creosote, with an economic assessment that factored in livestock fencing in agri-environment schemes, and post and pole uses in desert apple and hop production, and showed not having Creosote available would cost the industry an additional £453 million across the lifespan of previously creosoted materials. We could now see farmers and growers having to deal with this impact if an SPS agreement includes alignment with EU rules on biocides.
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