Our best route as consumers who care about the health of the countryside and ourselves is to keep organic farmers in business.

The European Union (EU) has done extensive research throughout Europe into the presence of traces of pesticides in our food. Findings show that 49% of fruit , vegetables and cereals have residues in or on them i.e. almost half of our food. Deep concern, particularly in mainland Europe, led to the proposed banning, in January, of a large range of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides which are in common use in ‘conventional’ agriculture and horticulture.

Farmers in the UK are outraged, saying that crop yields will fall dramatically without the use of these chemicals. But it is well known that many of these substances (especially used in combination) can be very injurious to human health, being carcinogenic, mutagenic and hormone-disrupting.

In organic farming the whole emphasis is on building and maintaining healthy soil, teeming with micro-bacteria. This grows sturdy plants which resist most disease. The overseeing body, the Soil Association, does allow the use of four mild pesticides (under licence only) in a crisis situation – compared with the dozens available to the crop-spraying ‘conventional farmers’.

About forty years ago the British Trust for Ornithology found that organic forms had twice as many breeding birds as did other farms. Numerous further studies have been ‘lost’. Farmland bird numbers have now seriously declined – surely partly due to the obliteration of insect life on crops?

In 2001 the UK launched a Voluntary Initiative on Pesticide Use, aiming for farmers to record and report and then hopefully reduce their usage. But this is not working (annual reports are mostly not being submitted). The imposition of a tax on pesticides is now likely. And the EU ban should become law this summer.

Our best route as consumers who care about the health of the countryside and ourselves is to keep organic farmers in business. If we choose to buy organic food we are doing this. It is usually more costly because more labour is involved in its production. Perhaps we can buy fewer items – all organic – and try to eat more simply. But for biodiversity’s health and our health – it is worth it.

Anne.