Jun 21, 2020 03:24 AM
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...NNETT.html
EXCERPTS: . . . Consumers are aware that post-Brexit trade deals with countries such as America, Australia and India risk abandoning the UK’s high agricultural standards as we import hormone-pumped beef and chicken washed in chlorine. But less well known is the fact that these countries still use the harmful pesticides that were banned by the EU because of their effect on insect populations.
While spraying them on foreign soils here has less of an impact, the fact is that – in the resulting ‘race to the bottom’ in welfare and environmental practices – there is every likelihood that British farmers will begin using these chemicals, too. But at what cost?
There are 1,500 species of insects that pollinate plants in the UK. Killing them would lead to crop failure – and devastate all the other wildlife that depends on insects and wild plants. THE economic value of insect pollination services to crop agriculture alone has been estimated as at least £600 million per year.
When left unregulated, if one farmer starts using toxic chemicals, others do too. America’s farms are now 48 times more toxic to bees and other insects, than they were just 25 years ago and the number of insect-eating birds has plummeted by more than 40 per cent. But the dangers are more wide-ranging. If we allow the unfettered use of agricultural chemicals on our food sources, it is not just insects that will suffer.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday reported experts’ fears that a trade deal with the US could expose British consumers to 70 potentially harmful chemicals – some associated with cancer – that are used on US farms but banned in the UK. The shocking report also detailed how hundreds of other pesticides are used in much greater quantities in America than here.
US grape vines, for example, are typically treated with 1,000 times the amount of an insecticide linked to problems with sexual function and fertility, while apple trees are sprayed with 400 times the level of malathion, an insecticide linked to cancer and lung problems if consumed in high quantities.
So just how dangerous are these chemicals? For a start, they do not restrict themselves to harming insects, fungi and wild plants that some people regard as pests. They don’t simply disappear once applied. Instead, they have a nasty habit of finding their way into rivers, attaching themselves to sediment and staying there. We have seen this happen already. [...] Atrazine is another toxic herbicide used abroad ... it’s banned in the UK and the EU. Yet atrazine is still widely used in many other countries, including America, India and Australia.
[...] Is allowing imports of foods that have been treated with these chemicals what the Trump administration means when it asks for ‘fair access’ to British markets as part of any deal? Make no mistake, our wildlife will suffer badly if our farmers are forced to compete by using the same harmful chemicals as our future trading partners.
What’s more, if we go further down the pesticide route, we’ll have even fewer insects, which, in turn, would have a catastrophic effect on animals that feed on them, such as hedgehogs (whose numbers have already been dwindling in recent decades) and farmland birds such as turtle doves.
If Washington gets its way, we will be flooded with ‘cheap’, mass-produced food, our farmers will be undercut, and we’ll find ourselves on a downward spiral of ever-lower standards just to compete. I deliberately use inverted commas around the word ‘cheap’ because there’s no such thing as cheap food. When huge quantities of pesticides, fossil fuels and giant factory farms are used to make food which sells cheaply, it’s because the manufacturing cost comes at a high price to nature, to our NHS from its impact on public health, and to taxpayers if we have to pay to remove toxic chemicals from our drinking water.
So how can we stop such a frightening future? WE NEED a law that protects this country’s high standards on the environment, animal welfare and food that would require imported products to be produced to an equally high bar. This would protect us from other countries’ bullying... (MORE - details)
EXCERPTS: . . . Consumers are aware that post-Brexit trade deals with countries such as America, Australia and India risk abandoning the UK’s high agricultural standards as we import hormone-pumped beef and chicken washed in chlorine. But less well known is the fact that these countries still use the harmful pesticides that were banned by the EU because of their effect on insect populations.
While spraying them on foreign soils here has less of an impact, the fact is that – in the resulting ‘race to the bottom’ in welfare and environmental practices – there is every likelihood that British farmers will begin using these chemicals, too. But at what cost?
There are 1,500 species of insects that pollinate plants in the UK. Killing them would lead to crop failure – and devastate all the other wildlife that depends on insects and wild plants. THE economic value of insect pollination services to crop agriculture alone has been estimated as at least £600 million per year.
When left unregulated, if one farmer starts using toxic chemicals, others do too. America’s farms are now 48 times more toxic to bees and other insects, than they were just 25 years ago and the number of insect-eating birds has plummeted by more than 40 per cent. But the dangers are more wide-ranging. If we allow the unfettered use of agricultural chemicals on our food sources, it is not just insects that will suffer.
Last week, The Mail on Sunday reported experts’ fears that a trade deal with the US could expose British consumers to 70 potentially harmful chemicals – some associated with cancer – that are used on US farms but banned in the UK. The shocking report also detailed how hundreds of other pesticides are used in much greater quantities in America than here.
US grape vines, for example, are typically treated with 1,000 times the amount of an insecticide linked to problems with sexual function and fertility, while apple trees are sprayed with 400 times the level of malathion, an insecticide linked to cancer and lung problems if consumed in high quantities.
So just how dangerous are these chemicals? For a start, they do not restrict themselves to harming insects, fungi and wild plants that some people regard as pests. They don’t simply disappear once applied. Instead, they have a nasty habit of finding their way into rivers, attaching themselves to sediment and staying there. We have seen this happen already. [...] Atrazine is another toxic herbicide used abroad ... it’s banned in the UK and the EU. Yet atrazine is still widely used in many other countries, including America, India and Australia.
[...] Is allowing imports of foods that have been treated with these chemicals what the Trump administration means when it asks for ‘fair access’ to British markets as part of any deal? Make no mistake, our wildlife will suffer badly if our farmers are forced to compete by using the same harmful chemicals as our future trading partners.
What’s more, if we go further down the pesticide route, we’ll have even fewer insects, which, in turn, would have a catastrophic effect on animals that feed on them, such as hedgehogs (whose numbers have already been dwindling in recent decades) and farmland birds such as turtle doves.
If Washington gets its way, we will be flooded with ‘cheap’, mass-produced food, our farmers will be undercut, and we’ll find ourselves on a downward spiral of ever-lower standards just to compete. I deliberately use inverted commas around the word ‘cheap’ because there’s no such thing as cheap food. When huge quantities of pesticides, fossil fuels and giant factory farms are used to make food which sells cheaply, it’s because the manufacturing cost comes at a high price to nature, to our NHS from its impact on public health, and to taxpayers if we have to pay to remove toxic chemicals from our drinking water.
So how can we stop such a frightening future? WE NEED a law that protects this country’s high standards on the environment, animal welfare and food that would require imported products to be produced to an equally high bar. This would protect us from other countries’ bullying... (MORE - details)