CHEMICAL CLEAROUT PESTS AND DISEASES The number of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides available to home gardeners seems set to fall after a review of their ingredients. This may have more to do with economics than safety, says Richard Trow-Smith OVER THE NEXT TWO YEARS, gardeners and the gardening trade will see a drastic pruning of the chemicals they can use to control pests, diseases and weeds, thanks to a European Union (EU) initiative aimed at harmonising the availability of pesticides across its member states. As a result of this review, the number of active ingredients available for crop protection in farming, forestry, professional horticulture and in gardening will almost certainly be slashed. In the United Kingdom, the total number of approved pesticide chemicals is likely to fall from approximately 800 to just over 300. Several of these 300 chemicals are familiar names to gardeners but, such are the uncertainties hanging over the European approval processes at present, there is no guarantee that products based on even these will be available in UK garden centres beyond 2003. Chemical review Standardising the way pesticides are approved by national governments is only one element of a drive designed to produce common regulations among the European states, which is seen as an important step in the move towards a single market. With pesticides, the EU has decided to draw up a Community list of approved chemicals. An active ingredient must have been approved to go on this list for products containing it to be sold within the EU, but it is then up to individual national governments to decide if they will allow its sale within their borders. Products based on chemicals not on the list cannot be sold legally anywhere in the EU. The first step was therefore for the European Commnission to embark on an ambitious review programme to examine the safety of all existing pesticides. The review process actually began in 1991, but its progress has been remarkably slow. The mechanisms for managing the process took a long time for national representatives to thrash out, with the result that at the present time only 90 of the 800 active ingredients had been assessed. Of those, only 18 (20 percent) have been accepted for the approved European list. The process clearly needed to be speeded up. The European Commission recognised that the list of chemicals needing review could be slimmed down significantly because national approval schemes still listed products which had become obsolete, or for which demand had dwindled to a few minor uses. It decided, therefore, to ask the manufacturers which products they would consider worthwhile supporting through the review process, and gave them until 1 September, 2000 to respond. Cost-benefit analysis As the manufacturers were expected to bear the cost of reviewing the active ingredients in their products, they had to weigh these costs against their projected income from the market for the approved product. A full evaluation of a product by the regulatory authorities in the UK on behalf of the EU can cost around £120,000 - with no guarantee of approval. Companies cannot, therefore, rely on being able to recoup anything from a considerable investment. For products used on widely grown agricultural crops such as cereals, vines, oilseed rape and potatoes, the potential markets are huge so the expenditure on evaluation fees and collecting the data demanded by the Commission (on toxicity to humans or wildlife, how much of the chemical remains in a food crop at harvest, or how long it is likely to persist in the wider environment, for example) is easy to justify. The investment decisions are far more tough for products applied to crops grown on smaller acreages, such as many fruit and vegetable crops, with much smaller potential f́nancial returns. The horticulture market fares worst of all - it comes bottom of the scale of investment priorities for the pesticide companies as it is a market sector that has traditionally provided only a tiny fraction of their total income. The result of the boardroom deliberations is that the manufacturers have told the Commission they intend to support only about 300 active ingredients through the review. However, this is only the start of the process and some companies may find the costs of supplying the full data package prohibitive.There is also one big unknown. When the full data package is submitted, companies will have to state the crops for which approval is being sought for each chemical, and say whether it will be for professional use only or also for amateur use by gardeners. No-one yet knows which products will include garden uses on the list of crops but given its size, the odds are stacked against the sector. The outlook is particularly bleak for chemicals for use on edible crops, since separate residue testing, often at several different times of year, is usually required to get approval for each crop. Rays of hope It is not all doom and gloom, however, as certain formulations and chemicals are exempt from the review. These include formulations based on 'bulk' ingredients widely used in quantity as industrial raw materials such as sulphur, copper and even soft soap. Traditional, sulphur-based fungicides will remain available, as will insecticides based on naturally occurring fatty acids. Derris, pyrethrum and other products with active ingredients extracted from plants will also be exempt from the review, as will biological remedies such as the pathogenic nematodes that can be used against slugs and vine weevils. There is cautious optimism that garden uses already registered for the remaining 300 active ingredients have a reasonable chance of being retained, providing companies decide to include them in their final review submissions. The home-gardening sector has an excellent safety record, and the products already approved in the UK for garden use have had to demonstrate safe usage over several years in the professional horticulture and amenity sector before they would even be considered by the regulatory authorities for use by amateurs. The sector also has a history of producing special formulations and delivery systems. The trend towards pre-mixed, ready-to-apply products, rather than concentrates that gardeners have to measure and mix themselves ( with greater risk of spillage ) may help. While the review process continues, European Union regulations state that unsupported products can continue to be sold until July 25, 2003. The rules also offer national governments the chance to mount a case to retain a specific chemical in national use, provided it can be shown conclusively that no efficient alternative is available. A further ray of hope also comes from the changes in the gardening market. Over the past few years, many chemical companies have given up their garden sectors entirely, principally because of the rapidly escalating costs of providing more and more data on the safety of each product to the regulators. The result has been to leave only a few major companies in this sector, and with ever closer economic integration, these now view the market on a Europe-wide basis. The pan-European gardening market has become large enough for the remaining companies to justify the huge cost of developing and testing new products, and seeing them through the approvals process. In future, they are likely to concentrate on developing a few chemicals active against a variety of pests, weeds or diseases, each supported by data covering a wide range of crop plants whether edible or omamental. Nevertheless, many well-known garden-chemical formulations will disappear from the shelves in 2003, in the main not because of fears over safety or toxicity but the economics of gaining approval for sales in a relatively small market. So, rather than relying on the chemicals that survive the review, home gardeners may find it useful to adopt a more integrated approach to pest and disease control. We will all need to look towards altematives to chemical controls, such as mulching against weeds rather than applying herbicides, using products based on plant extracts and fatty acids rather than insecticides, and going back to sulphur-based fungicides. We can also select cultivars with greater natural resistance to pests and diseases and adopt wider rotation periods in the vegetable garden. And are such steps, together with improved garden hygiene and cultural conditions more in tune with the natural rhythms of nature, necessarily a bad thing? Richard Trow-Smith (Communications Manager for the Crop Protection Association ) ________________________________________________________________________ USING GARDEN PESTICIDES The Society's policy on pesticides is set out in The use of garden chemicals, one of the Conservation and Environment Guidelines (for a copy, send a SAE to the Advisory Service at RHS Garden Wisley). The RHS supports steps that are being taken to ensure that pesticides are thoroughly tested to modern standards, but is concerned that products, that have given good service in gardens are being lost, on economic rather than safety or environmental grounds. The Society respects the wishes of some gardeners to follow organic growing practices and avoid using man-made chemicals; however it believes that insecticides, fungicides and herbicides are useful tools in a garden and can give safe, and effective results if properly used. David Senior, Technical Manager for the UK garden-chemical firm Vitax said, "Few pesticides for use on home-garden food crops will survive the review process because the cost of supplying residue, data for each crop is prohibitively expensive. " Environmental groups on the whole welcome the tightening of EU legislation. Friends of the Earth (FOE) Real Food Campaigner Sandra Bell said the total amount of pesticides, or 'active substances', used in both home and garden in the UK in 1998 was 1,887,000 kg ( 4.2 million lb). Although agricultural use was much higher, home use was significant, and as protective clothing was seldom used at home, the safety of the products was even more important. 'Some of these chemicals work as nerve poisons, and others disrupt hormonal systems,' she said. 'We have, information about particular pesticides we consider to be most risky, and can identify which of these are in specific garden products. Chief Executive of the organic organisation the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA) Alan Gear said he welcomed the tightening up of regulations governing the use of garden chemicals. The organisation was 'delighted to see a reduction in the choice offered for sale'. 'The volume of pesticides used in non-agricultural circumstances, mainly amenity horticulture, are surprisingly large. Domestic gardens are a small element of this, but even so the quantities are not insignificant,' he said. 'Our view is that in terms of the adverse loading of agrochemicals into the environment, every little helps.' Pesticides sold in concentrate form that require diluition are becoming more rare. Pre-mixed, ready-to-use sprays are becoming more popular as they are easier and safer to use. Horticultural professionals have to pass a certificate of competence test before they can apply pesticides, and they must wear protective clothing. *.More information: HDRA (pesticide alternatives) (01203) 303517 (www.hdra.org.uk) FOE (pesticide toxicity) (0207) 566 1716 ________________________________________________________________________ Active ingredients and formulations Pesticides include insecticides, fungicides and herbicides, and are sold in a range of formulations - ready-to-use sprays, concentrates, powders, even paint-on gels - for different situations and target organism. Active ingredients are the chemicals in the pesticide formulations that actually kill the target organisms. The active ingredients and individual formulations both undergo stringent testing. Further information More on pesticides can be found in Conservation and Environment Guidelines and Problem Profiles on the RHS website (www.rhs.org.uk). See also 'About our Products' on the Crop Protection Association website: (www.cropprotection.org.uk). Tel: (01733) 349225 Set for possible withdrawal lnsecticides: malathion , dimethoate, heptenophos, methiocarb and chlorpyrifos Fungicides: bupirimate plus triforine and one carbendazim formulation. Fewer fungicides have been lost than insecticides, but their specific uses in the garden have been much reduced. Newly introduced: imidacloprid (Bio Provado Vine Weevil Killer), a broad-band insecticide and flutriafol (Roseclear Gun!), a fungicide newly approved for home gardeners. Problem pests The review's effects will mean problems controlling pests on plums, peaches, currants, cherries, grape vines, carrots, onions and leeks. Scale insects, mealybugs, leaf miners and root flies on brassicas, carrots and onion will be increasingly difficult to control. There are no fungicides now available for home use on peony wilt, pyracantha scab, leaf spots on omamentals (except rose blackspot), bean rust, leek rust, onion downy mildew, verticillum wilt or phytophthora root rots. Traditional copper-based products such as Bordeaux mixture are being supported through the EU review process. Products with active ingredients based on plant extracts like Liquid Derris from Bio are exempt 8 Biological controls such as the predator Cryptolaemus for mealybug from Defenders and the range from Scarlett's Plant Care 9 will become increasingly attractive options. BioProvado Vine Weevil Killer, the new chemical control for this pest available to home gardeners, is based on a new insecticide, imidacloprid