Our sustainability team can help a wide range of clients understand the implications of pesticides within their supply base. Thanks to our wider expertise in agriculture, we can provide a combination of stakeholder engagement and expert understanding of pesticide usage.
Pesticides are widely used in the production of agricultural raw materials to help farmers produce high-quality affordable crops. However, there are a wide range of pressures on pesticide usage including:
Food and drink businesses involved in the production of products for human consumption need to know what pesticides are being used within their supply chain. Consumer pressure can drive businesses towards taking their own approach to the approval of different pesticides for use in products.
We are able to provide expert evaluation of data available to support any decisions made on the use of high profile pesticides within the supply chain. This can be combined with stakeholder and consumer engagement exercises to understand their views on particular pesticides. This will provide a robust and informed backdrop to the development of any pesticide policy.
We are also able to offer insights into the availability of pesticides within a global supply chain. As well as current restrictions, we can assess the potential implications of restrictions in use on the availability of agricultural raw materials.
As part of a registration or re-registration process, there is a large amount of scientific evidence produced to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of the active substance. It can also be useful to quantify the social, economic and environmental impacts of the active substance to the farming industry to support submissions.
This is not a regulatory requirement, but assessors have indicated that this type of supporting documentation can be valuable to active substance re-registration. It can also be used to support product marketing.
We have developed a robust methodology, to demonstrate wider socio-economic impacts of pesticide withdrawal or substitution, or the potential benefit of introducing a pesticide into new markets.
Our Pesticide Impact Assessment tool establishes a baseline for current practices in product usage in a particular market. We use stakeholder consultation to assess the value of an active from the individual farm level, up to industry level on a UK or European scale.
The tool also allows us to assess the short and long term implications of a particular change to pesticide availability. Short term implications include yield impacts or short term changes to practices or control methods.
Longer-term implications focus on resistance management and the wider implications of a change to pesticide availability such as environmental impacts, increased time/labour costs, resistance management and changes to imports/exports and crop areas.
Contact Sarah Wynn for more information on how we can help you.