Examination of Witnesses (Questions 106-119)
8 FEBRUARY 2005
MS EMILY
DIAMOND, MR
PETER RILEY
AND DR
CLARE BUTLER
ELLIS
Q106 Chairman: Can I start our second
session of this EFRA Sub-Committee on Progress on Pesticides.
Can I welcome our witnesses for today, on behalf of Friends of
the Earth, Emily Diamond, Senior Researcher for Food and Farming,
Peter Riley, Consultant to Friends of the Earth, and Dr Clare
Butler Ellis, UK and European Programme Co-ordinator from the
Pesticide Action Network UK, who provided a very valuable background
note to us on this Committee. Obviously we have seen your written
submissions and we want to ask you some questions both in terms
of what you have said to us and, also, to take up points which
were raised by a number of other witnesses in our first session.
Friends of the Earth has made a great deal of the issue that there
should be a reduction in the use of pesticides and that has been
said by the Pesticide Action Network also. Our other witnesses
of last week said that was not the most important issue and they
gave various examples of this. I want to begin by asking you why
you feel it is important to reduce the absolute level of pesticides
used in this country?
Dr Butler Ellis: I think there
are three important factors which influence the environmental
impact of pesticides. Certainly the way they are used is very
important, but there is also the issue of how much of them are
used and, also, which pesticides are used in terms of the most
hazardous versus the least hazardous. Clearly the Voluntary Initiative
only tackles how they are used. We feel that even with current
best practice being implemented, the pesticides which are being
used are still not intrinsically safe, they are designed to kill
and can be toxic. Even if you put them on in the best possible
way, there is nothing to confine them to the area you are treating:
spray drift, run-off, leaching, volatilisation, all these things
can move them from where you want them to be to where you do not
want them to be and where they can do damage. Therefore, we would
say the only way of minimising that environmental impact is to
reduce the total amount used.
Q107 Chairman: You speak about things
landing where they should not. We heard from the Crop Protection
Association that, for example, a screw cap on a pesticide container,
which is in contact with highly concentrated contents, can be
more dangerous than anything if that is simply thrown away and
ends up in a watercourse.
Dr Butler Ellis: That is undoubtedly
true. That, as a concentrated point source of contamination, can
have a big effect, but that should not diminish the fact that
there will be other things which can have an effect also. I do
not think anybody really knows the relative importance of all
the different issues. At best, I would say the sort of issues
that the VI is tackling, such as point source contamination from
a sprayer and from pesticide containers and so on, could never
be more than half the problem. At best, we are only tackling half
the problem at the moment and I would guess it is a lot less than
half the problem.
Q108 Chairman: Relatively speaking, where
do you think the extent of environmental awareness and using the
correct dose lies, vis a" vis, reducing the absolute
amount of material used?
Dr Butler Ellis: Sorry, can you
repeat that?
Q109 Chairman: What do you think the
balance is between using the correct dose and using it well and
the absolute dose which is used?
Dr Butler Ellis: That is a very
difficult thing to answer and I am not sure I can give you an
answer to that. Undoubtedly it is true that even if you use some
pesticides, absolutely as they should be, perfectly, with no accidents,
they can still end up in the water and still escape from where
they are supposed to be. There is no such thing as zero spray
drift, for example, and we have seen pesticides coming from the
fields into the water. I do not think I can give you a figure
on what the relative percentages are. I do not think that is possible.
Q110 Chairman: Are you perhaps just advocating
no pesticides, therefore no risk?
Dr Butler Ellis: Absolutely not
"no pesticides", because we want a secure food supply,
we want to preserve British agriculture, that is really important.
We want better emphasis and incentives to move away from the dependence
on pesticides. We want better development of alternatives, non-chemical
controls, integrated farm management, all these things which can
help us to reduce our dependence on pesticides. I think there
will always be a need for some pesticides for the foreseeable
future.
Q111 Chairman: Let me test you again
on what the Agricultural Industry Confederation said to us. "There
may be a product which is used at a rate of a kilo per hectare,
which is safer than something which is used at a quarter of that
rate, quantity can be misleading".
Dr Butler Ellis: Absolutely, yes.
Ms Diamond: I was going to say
we do not advocate use reduction simply on that kind of basis,
and particularly a simple, based on weight, approach would mean,
for example, quite low toxicity compounds, such as sulphur compounds,
could be targeted first with very significant apparent reductions
but, in fact, the impacts of that are quite minimum. We are talking
about a hazard based approach, for example, looking at the risk
of the pesticides, the hazards which they cause to a healthy environment
and using that as a basis for reduction. We consider that the
kind of benefits we would like to see, for the environment and
health, go hand in hand with reduction. Also, that would be part
of a strategy including things like alternatives and there do
need to be alternatives in place. At the moment everything is
very focused on pesticide use, we need to move away from that
to look at all the other options there are for pest management.
Q112 Chairman: In evidence Friends of
the Earth have referred, quite a lot, to the residues occurring
in food also. We know of your concern about the safety of food
which has been treated. I would like to ask you a little about
that, beginning with what are your concerns regarding the current
system of approvals for pesticides?
Ms Diamond: Specifically in relation
to food?
Q113 Chairman: Yes.
Ms Diamond: In terms of the approvals
process, we feel that may be a step behind where we are looking
at the risks for consumers, in particular with food. We are saying
there should be residue-free food at the point of sale. That does
not mean pesticides would not necessarily be approved and that
would be a way of doing that, it means looking at how they are
used, for example, harvest intervals, that kind of thing, and
ensuring that pesticides are not on the produce when people buy
them in the shops. There are lots of reasons why there are problems
with that and some of that is down to, for example, cosmetic use
due to high standard demands from supermarkets. There are various
issues which relate to why you get residues in food. In terms
of the regulatory process, what we are more concerned about is
ensuring that, for example, the maximum residue levels are set
such that acute reference doses and accessible daily intake levels
are met for consumers. That takes into account also the more vulnerable
consumers; small children are smaller so they are more vulnerable
to pesticides in the food they eat because they eat proportionately
more. Those are the areas we are particularly concerned about.
Q114 Mr Wiggin: I am very interested
by what you said about the cosmetic view of foods because, obviously,
people shopping at supermarkets can choose to buy organic foods
if they so wish and most supermarkets have an organic section.
Are you suggesting that people do not know what is best for themselves
and, therefore, they are picking the pretty carrots, if you like,
because—I suggest perhaps slightly patronisingly—they
do not know what is best for themselves. Is that the case?
Ms Diamond: No, not at all. When
I say cosmetic standards from supermarkets, I mean they are standards
which are imposed by supermarkets upon their suppliers. They have
very high standards of physical appearance, for example, they
are very, very intolerant of any kind of blemish. These can be
completely inconsequential in terms of the quality of the fruit,
but these are to do with supermarkets' demands, things like down
to the level of blushing on pears and apples.
Q115 Mr Wiggin: That is what the customers
want, is it not?
Ms Diamond: Is it, that is the
question?
Q116 Mr Wiggin: If they do not, they
can buy from the organic section.
Ms Diamond: For a start, we are
not saying the only option for people should be to buy organic,
we feel they should be able to be confident of non-organic produce
as well. What we are saying is the supermarkets have set a standard
for produce and it is very difficult, for example, even to find
class two produce sometimes in supermarkets. They are setting
a standard and then saying that is what people want, but there
is no good evidence, no research, or anything, that if you presented
a person with one apple which was at class one and one which was
at supermarket standard—which is often above class one standards—they
would automatically choose the better one and that is really what
they are demanding and that is really what they are going for.
It is a question of, is it demand led or is it led by the supply
from the supermarkets?
Dr Butler Ellis: The other point
is they are not aware of what pesticides are used to produce that
food and if they had more information they may then choose a more
blemished version than a less blemished if they knew there was
less pesticide used in its production.
Q117 Chairman: Overall, are you suggesting
the present system of monitoring is not sufficient in terms of
pesticides in food to guarantee consumer safety?
Ms Diamond: We have consistently
said we think there should be more monitoring. The specific concerns
we have been raising recently have been relating to acute reference
doses. What we have said is we have done research which shows
these can be seen in children and we would like the Government
to ensure that maximum residue levels on acute toxic pesticides
are set so that acute references doses are not exceeded. In terms
of monitoring for pesticides, there is a wider problem in that
it does seem that for routes of exposure there may be only one
or two routes which are monitored at all. One would be exposure
for food and one would be occupational exposure possibly. There
are all sorts of other risks of exposure to people, including
home use or bystander exposure or going to parks where they may
be used by local authorities. That kind of wider monitoring of
pesticide exposure is something which we think should be looked
at because until then you do not know what risk people are exposed
to.
Q118 Chairman: Presumably that is part
of your reasoning also, that more toxic pesticides should be substituted
for by less toxic pesticides?
Ms Diamond: Yes, exactly. When
we talk about use reduction, one of the focuses of that would
be a targeted approach, so you tackle the most toxic or the most
environmentally damaging pesticides first. It is not simply done
on a per kilo basis.
Q119 Mr Wiggin: Sorry, I do not understand.
It is perfectly clear what you mean by the most toxic, but is
there not a danger that if you have a less effective pesticide,
people will be forced to use more of it and then you return to
the toxicity problem that you are trying to tackle in the first
place?
Ms Diamond: I think there are
absolute hazards which you can consider, for example, endocrine
disruption or carcinogenicity and, also, things like nerve-affecting
pesticides, like organophosphates, where there is not some kind
of level at which, if you then substitute it with something else,
there would be an equivalent risk because you are talking about
specific toxicity and the mode of action. That is the kind of
thing you can target.
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