I talk a bit about pesticides, what they are and how they are regulated and risk assessed in Europe. Hopefully not too dry and boring, but it’s essential background for discussing potential pesticide impacts on human health or the environment. And it’s just 7 minutes, so bear with me…
In the second half of the podcast, I take take a somewhat closer look at one particular fungicide, chlorothalonil. The compound has just been banned a couple of days ago. I’ll explore why this decision was taken, and some of the reactions to this decision.
- More details on the European system for the authorization of new active ingredients and the re-authorization of existing chemicals can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/approval_active_substances_en
- Details on the European system for the authorization of new pesticide products: https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pesticides/authorisation_of_ppp_e
- The underlying basis for all these approaches is the EU palnt protection product Regulation (or pesticide Regulation in short). The full text, as all EU legal texts, can be found at EUR-Lex https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32009R1107
- The EFSA risk assessment report on Chlorothalonil is here: https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/5126
- The comment from the UK’s farmer’s association was taken from an article in “Farmers Guardian”, from 25th of March 2019: https://www.fginsight.com/news/news/european-standing-committee-votes-to-ban-fungicide-chlorothalonil-82354 There are actually quite a few more interesting bits and pieces and comments to be found in the article. Definitely worth a read.
