Farmers' fury as EU votes to phase out weedkiller that could cost UK billions Only as that's the DE, I'd like to see it confirmed by a non fake news site.
Oh tremendous. I read it is to be phased out over 5 years at least but honest to god what are farmers/gardeners going to use instead? I don’t use much weed killer myself but there are places where there is little alternative. I would love to know what weed killers they use in Naples...think they are in the EUremember landing at Naples airport and getting a bus to go about an hours drive north. I have never seen such scorched verges in my life. Whatever their council was using was 1 hell of a more powerful than Gylphosate!
I'm not sure, but once we've left the EU, on whatever deal is reached, I think we'll find a push to establish our own licencing for agricultural applications. If so, we may find Chemical Firms seeking to register a licence with the UK for worldwide use bar the EU. I think that also might apply to plant breeders and seed producers.
Or a continuation of a total ban to comply with requirements for access to EU for UK agricultural produce.
My personal thoughts are it should be banned for use on food crops, seems a stupid idea to me to even consider spraying your food with the stuff. If you just want to kill weeds, then that is a completely different thing. I dont tend to eat dead weeds that I have sprayed.
Possible, but the Chemical Industry lobby is very powerful and I think the UK desire to regain control of it's own trading powers might have a great effect. A lot of the UK/EU bartering on trading export and imports will not be settled before March 2019 and a lot of the banned products might find a "home" with a UK Licencing Organisation with an eye on World Trading rather than just the EU.
I use it occasionally and very little. For those that use it maybe time to stock up before a ban comes into place.
Mixed feelings about this. I use very little chemicals in the garden; glyphosate on pathways as an occasional spot weedkiller so I could use something else. However, my feeling is glyphosate is prob safer than any other weedkiller I may use instead A local farmer was talking last week and invited local radio to see the masses of bees and insects on his fields. Clearly glyphosate, that had been used, has not affected wildlife there. He also argued food crops will be drastically reduced without glyphosate; farmers do rely on glyphosate to help produce high yields. We will miss glyphosate......what else would we use to control bindweed, brambles, ground elder and the rest? Not everybody can do this physically!
Below are three links giving slightly different views on the topic: EU delays decision on banning weed killer despite cancer fears EU on brink of historic decision on pervasive glyphosate weedkiller American Chemical Society Putting on the professional white coat, modern analytical tests are incredibly sensitive and can detect things like glyphosate at 1 part in a trillion. What people don't know is whether these levels and even levels a thousand times greater than this have any effect on people.
I'd been looking other reports (that predate) that DE article), found them unclear as my understanding is that the period for using glyphosate will expire unless it's extended, so a decision to ban it, or no decision to ban it, or no decision to extend the period permitting continued usage will all effectively mean it's banned. So from the quoted link above in tnis post: "EU member states have decided not to vote on whether to extend the license the popular agricultural chemical" means that if they don't vote to permit continued usage, when the existing extension ecpire it will automatically become banned. Combine that with biased reporting by anti Brexit newspapers wantingvto bash the EU and anti Brexit newspapers trying to present the EU in a favourable light, it can be difficult getting to the truth as to what's actually happening.
I've not used it for a while, preferring other methods. Having said that, it seems that the EU is on a bit of an environmental crusade at present. There are other things that they are planning to ban, one of them being bio diesel. Apparently, it now pollutes more than proper diesel.
