Critical review of pesticide risk indicators

15 June 2021

A joint NFU and Voluntary Initiative funded report published

The VI and it's sponsors have long supported sustainable use aims to reduce risk and impact of pesticide use. These aims are at the heart of sustainable use legislation and the resulting National Action Plans (NAP) for the sustainable use of plant protection products (PPPs). The government is currently in the process of reviewing its Pesticide Usage Survey (PUS) and consulted with industry and the wider public earlier this year about our future NAP.

To help make evidence-based responses about pesticide risk and move towards being able to measure changes in the level of risk from pesticides use over time, the NFU and the Voluntary Initiative (VI) jointly funded researchers Fera to critically review pesticide risk indicators (PRI) that go beyond ‘quantity only’ measures (as reflected in current PUS data).

Here, the NFU's senior regulatory affairs adviser Chris Hartfield looks at the current issues and explains the results of the review.