The UK government has given emergency authorisation every year since Brexit for the use of a neonicotinoid that is highly toxic to bees. In that time, the EU has banned emergency use of these chemicals.
Nick Mole, from PAN UK, said: “The UK is becoming the toxic poster child of Europe. The government has repeatedly promised that our environmental standards won’t slip post-Brexit. And yet here we are, less than four years later, and already we’re seeing our standards fall far behind those of the EU. With UK bees and other pollinators in decline, and our waters never more polluted, now is the time to be taking steps to protect nature. Instead, the government is choosing to expose British wildlife to an ever-more toxic soup of chemicals.”
Breaking Brexit promises? What a shocker - this was one of the reasons they wanted Brexit in the first place. Unfortunately, pointing this out got labelled as Project Fear. Any “promises” were just lies and misdirection.
It seems I read (quite some time ago) this is due to trade agreements with the US? I do know that Roundup was due to be banned in Mexico, but after pressure from the USA, it never happened.
Oh there will be all sorts of overt and covert pressures being brought on a government already naturally inclined to be light on regulation. There definitely were concerns in the early days about a potential trade deal with America resulting in a degradation of our food standards - chlorinated chicken was the leading horror there.
I’m eating that. :-/
UK harvesting the benefits of Brexit.
UK losing their biggest market for their farmers not being able to deliver food complying with EU-regulations.
Suffrennity!
I see what you did there
Mole said: “The emerging gap between UK and EU pesticide standards is incredibly concerning for our human health and environmental protections, but also for the future of UK agriculture as our standards fall further and further behind those of our largest trading partner. UK food exports containing pesticides that EU growers aren’t allowed to use, are likely to be rejected. Given that the EU still accounts for around 60% of UK agricultural exports, the impact on farmers could be devastating.”
I’d think that the same issue is going to come up for wherever a farmer exports to. Some countries are going to not want given pesticides used, some don’t like genetically-engineered foods, some approve specific genetically-engineered foods, some don’t allow certain foods from certain sources only (e.g. I know in the US we had many years of a ban on importing British beef after the mad cow disease outbreak). Unless the UK and that other country have exactly the same set of requirements, a farmer is always going to have to have the food conform to those standards.
Yeah, it’s simpler for British farmers if the UK also has the same restrictions, countrywide, as a given export market, but I don’t think that it’s a fundamental issue for exports. It does mean that they need to ensure that they avoid violating standards for that export market in addition to domestic requirements.
Here’s a graph of US exports:
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58374
The top five markets for US agricultural exports are China, Mexico, Canada, Japan, and the EU-27. While, under the USMCA FTA, Canada and Mexico do have mutual recognition of standards, so that the onus of proof in disallowing a comparable standard from another USMCA member is on the rejecting country, normally things acceptable in one country are also acceptable in the others, and that doesn’t require that their standards are identical. Japan and China and the EU-27 definitely don’t have the same standards. Just means that stuff that is exported to a given destination needs to conform to whatever requirements are placed in that export destination, even if stuff that isn’t going there doesn’t have that requirement.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The UK has failed to ban 36 pesticides that are not allowed for use in the EU, as campaigners say it is becoming the “toxic poster child of Europe”.
Though ministers promised the UK would not water down EU-derived environmental standards after Brexit, there have been multiple instances of divergence since the country left the bloc.
Thirteen of the 36 chemicals are considered highly hazardous pesticides under UN definitions used to identify the most harmful substances.
With UK bees and other pollinators in decline, and our waters never more polluted, now is the time to be taking steps to protect nature.
PAN is calling for the government to bring standards back in line with the EU to protect human health, the agriculture industry and the environment.
Pesticides have to be authorised for use on the market in Great Britain by our expert regulator, the Health and Safety Executive or by ministers, following those thorough scientific risk assessments.
The original article contains 627 words, the summary contains 157 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
