Pesticide Ban – will Food Production be hit?

January 17, 2009 · Filed Under news 

In the European Parliament this week, MEPs voted overwhelmingly in favour of proposals that could mean the removal of up to 23% of current pesticides. Defra Secretary Hilary Benn reiterated that he could not support a regulation that could devastate European productivity.

There are fears that the new rules could remove substances that tackle critical plant diseases such as blight in potatoes or septoria in wheat leading to big yield reductions before suitable replacement sprays are developed. Production of crops such as carrots and onions may become very difficult as important weed killers are withdrawn and large scale hand weeding is now out of the question.

This highlights the way that over the last 60 years or so, the carrying capacity of the Earth has been raised by the use of pesticides, fertilisers and engine power derived from finite fossil fuels. Many people would like to see these artificial aids to production withdrawn, but we are now dependent on them for the vast amount of food needed.

In the past, fossil energy has been so cheap and plentiful that we have been able to use it to provide food energy cheaply. When fossil energy becomes expensive and scarce through depletion or through geo-political events, then food will also become expensive and scarce.

We therefore need to find better ways to collect and use the abundant supplies of solar energy that reach us every day.

Tags:

Comments

Leave a Reply