Policy, practice and partnership: pragmatism or perfection in farming?

摘要

In order to protect the environment, users of pesticides have been subject to changes in regulations, stewardship programmes, and strong consumer/political pressure to modify their usual practices. Farmers have been required to increase their own awareness of soil and water quality concerns and are now expected to fully comply with all statutory requirements, codes of practice and the guidelines or advice issued by a range of stakeholders with respect to the use of pesticides. The impact of these initiatives on farmers is difficult to assess but there has been a general acceptance of the need to protect soil and water and to co-operate with the various requirements in order to avoid inflexible legislation, revocation of active substances or other stringent restrictions. However there remains some uneasiness amongst many farmers concerning the successful implementation of measures due to conflicting advice, lack of evidence of impact, inflexibility, practicality and cost. There is also a need for regulators to acknowledge that immediate improvements in practice, which do not necessarily solve environmental problems, but do reduce impacts, are acceptable when part of the overall process of achieving a longer term objective of full compliance. UK farmers are key partners in a number of proposed initiatives which have been designed to protect soil and water quality.