Wildlife Trusts right on use of pesticide

I AGREE heartily with the view expressed by Jan Metcalf (Letters, 2 February) that the Wildlife Trusts are right to challenge the Government’s regrettable, irresponsible and shortsighted decision to allow the use of a banned neonicotinoid pesticide on sugar beet grown in the UK.

There is evidence that around 95% of these pesticides will find their way into the soil, where they pollute all other crops, including flowering ones, and poison insects, birds, animals and water-courses.

Because of this, beet farmers who opt to use neonicotinoids have been advised to use herbicides to kill any wildflowers within a wide radius of their crop. Yet the Government has signalled in its new Agriculture Bill that it intends the UK to move to more sustainable, wildlife-friendly farming practices.

Licensing the use of a pesticide which has been banned in the UK and throughout Europe because of its devastating impact on vital pollinators, such as bees, sends out completely the opposite message.

The sugar beet industry tells us that its crops are grown to

Red Tractor British farm-assured standards, and is urging the public to respond to Red Tractor’s current consultation exercise as part of that organisation’s 2021 Standards Review: https://redtractor. citizenspace.com/standards/ red-tractor-2021-standardsconsultation/consultation/intro/

Given that Red Tractor’s stated mission is to ‘drive up standards in food safety, animal welfare and environmental protection’, it is difficult to see why an industry which has successfully lobbied the Government to allow it to use neonicotinoids should be permitted to retain its Red Tractor accreditation.