Western Morning News (Saturday)
On Saturday It’s time to leave the weedkiller on the shelf
IF there are any farmers, or council officials reading this column, will you please explain the benefits of using toxic fertilisers and weedkillers on the land? And explain to me the issues that surround them for the land, for humans and animals? Because from where I sit there’s an awful lot of confusion.
Only 2% of wildflower meadows still exist in Britain’s lowlands. UK orchards spray their apples 26 times a year with insecticides, fungicides and other chemicals. Men eating foods with pesticides have been shown to have a 50% lower sperm count. Hedgehogs have declined by 50% in the last 15 years. In parts of China, farmers have to hand-pollinate fruit trees because pesticides have wiped out the bees. If we’re not careful it will happen worldwide.
Plymouth City Council admit to using weedkillers in our parks and streets. They spray about three times annually without consulting residents. The spray is reckoned by manufacturers to be safe. Many others disagree and research is unsettling. Spraying isn’t safe for weeds. We need them for a whole ecostructure and wildlife can’t survive without them.
Recently The Times mentioned that plans to ban a type of fertiliser that causes severe air pollution have been scrapped to help protect farmers from the soaring cost of alternative fertilisers. A ban on the sale or use of solid urea fertiliser was announced in 2020. The government said: “The delay has been made to help farmers manage their costs in the light of a global rise in gas prices”.
Great. To a lay person like me it means a risk of dying of some grim respiratory disease just so our cattle can be fed or food can be grown on
chemically fed land. I need an explanation. I bet Andy Pollard would like one too. The ex-farm manager spent decades spraying herbicides, unaware of any danger and didn’t use protective equipment, like the council workman. Neither did the birds, small creatures or insects, btw.
Pollard’s days of leaping into a tractor cab has long gone. Andy is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s Disease and can no longer control his limbs, let alone work.
The herbicide that Andy used was Paraquat. Now some British farmers are calling for a ban on the UK production of the toxic weedkiller. British farmers are not alone as hundreds of US farmers pursue a legal case against the manufacturer. They reckon the manufacturers, Syngenta, knew of the risks involved. Paraquat is one of the world’s most popular and effective herbicides. It was first manufactured in the UK in the early 1960s and it’s registered by 377 companies to sell it globally.
Although it’s reckoned to be efficacious it’s also now thought by some to be one of the most dangerous and has caused thousands of poisoning deaths. That’s to people – God knows what it’s done to creatures that have no voice. Trouble is, farmers are often over a barrel. Julie Plumley’s farmer father died of Parkinson’s. In a recent BBC interview, Julie says her childhood farm was owned by the local council, so her father had to meet certain conditions. “He had to use chemicals, because if you got too many weeds they could take the money away from you.”
Global studies show rural, agricultural areas often have higher rates of Parkinson’s Disease, a degenerative neurological condition which is believed to be the world’s fastest growing brain condition.
Paraquat hasn’t been authorised for use in the EU since a court ruling in 2007 and is still the case in the EU, but it’s still made under the brand name of Gramoxone at Syngenta’s plant in Huddersfield. And here’s something to make you proud to be British, we export it to the US, Japan and Australia with a fifth of exports going to the developing world.
Toxicologist Prof John Heylings worked for Syngenta and its predecessor companies for more than 20 years and after retiring, gave evidence against the company in US legal action. Syngenta say they’ve invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the product lifetime to ensure its safety. Other research contradicts this and the battle goes on.
The World Health Organisation’s Agency for Research on Cancer declared that glyphosphate, the chemical in the widely sold “Roundup” is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. It’s the most commonly found herbicide in UK food, according to government monitoring. Cereal crops are sprayed before harvest, and we then eat it in our bread, our breakfast cereals.
If you want a pretty garden that’s weed free, go ahead and spray with weedkiller. But know that you’re destroying important food sources for insect, bird and animal species, including bees. You’ll kill worms, vital for the soil. You’ll also be putting yourself at risk. Is it worth it?
Realise that, by spraying a few harmless weeds, we set a whole chain of eco-destruction going when we squirt the chemicals – which is unbelievably still sold in every garden centre and supermarket in the country. Lobby the managers of these shops. Do your bit to help the globe survive and refuse to buy it. And farmers – tell me if you have another answer because we need one, and soon. Meanwhile, leave the weedkiller on the shelf... please.
The herbicide that Andy used was Paraquat. Now he is suffering from advanced Parkinson’s Disease and can no longer control his limbs