ECPA governmental affairs manager, Stephan Schraff, travelled from Belgium to Southburn to meet the director of JSR Farms, Philip Huxtable, for a first hand account of how the proposed legislation will affect farming in the UK.

If given the go-ahead, farmers across Europe will have access to fewer pesticides thanks to the inclusion of a cut-off criteria that would ban some of the main active ingredients in fungicides, herbicides and insecticides.

According to the ECPA, this in turn will impact on the quality of European food, the sources of Europe's agricultural products and the prices of fruit, vegetables and other staples.

Mr Huxtable fears the proposals, which he has described as draconian, will have a detrimental impact on arable farming at a time when food prices are rocketing.

Mr Huxtable said: "Our concern is the effect on the farming industry with regards to the pesticide legislation being proposed by the EU and the effect it will have on the productivity of arable farming.

Certainly, it will have an impact on our production yield and the impact will be significant."

Mr Schraff was given a guided tour of the Southburn farms giving Mr Huxtable the opportunity to present his argument against the new legislation, including an overview of the pests and diseases the arable industry has to contend with on a daily basis.

Mr Huxtable said: "For example the main disease that effects wheat around the world and in the UK is Septoria and really the only way of controlling that is with the use of Triazole fungicides.

"Depending on the year and obviously climate has an effect but it will reduce our yield anywhere between 30 and 40 per cent just from that one disease, it's the biggest disease we have to contend with.
"If this legislation goes ahead how do we produce food? We are trying to produce food, but at the same time have consideration for the welfare of the countryside, we are always looking out for the environment."
Mr Huxtable also outlined the farms involvement with the LEAF programme which aims at establishing a balance between pest management and a safe environment and the responsible use of crop protection products on a daily basis.

Mr Huxtable added: "The world population is rising and the amount of land available to grow food on is being covered with concrete so we have to grow more food on less area to meet the demand.

"At the same time we are challenged to grow non-food crops such as oil seed rape for bio-diesel and willow for wood chip and now they are trying to tie my hands behind my back by saying you can't use pesticides."