by Nick Mole (Policy Officer, PAN UK) We are angry, the public are angry and the insects are dying Yet it appears that our politicians, across the board, are sitting on their hands as they have done for years hoping that this inconvenient truth will disappear and they can get [...]
by Josie Cohen (Head of Policy and Campaigns) PAN UK continues to work intensely on Brexit to make sure our pesticide standards aren’t weakened as a result of the UK’s exit from the EU. Over the past two weeks, our focus has been on what are called ‘Statutory Instruments’ (SIs). [...]
It’s not the first time we’ve heard about declining insect numbers in recent years, but last week a global scientific study, the first of its kind, shocked even those working in the field to the core. The study – as outlined in an article published in The Guardian - found [...]
by Josie Cohen (Head of Policy and Campaigns) Today, Monday 21st January (‘Blue Monday’), is claimed to be the most depressing day of the year. But the agrochemical company Bayer, the world's largest manufacturer of glyphosate-based products, must be desperately hoping that their worst days of 2019 are already behind them. [...]
Supporting healthy, sustainable and productive smallholder vegetable farming: PAN Ethiopia and PAN UK’s new joint project in the Central Rift Valley Excessive use of Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) on vegetable crops grown for the Ethiopian market in the Lake Ziway area threatens the health of farmers and consumers. It also [...]
An update on our work with cotton farmers in Benin (November 2018) The latest results on our project working with cotton farmers in Benin, West Africa, are extremely positive. Working in collaboration with the Benin Organisation for the Promotion of Organic Farming (OPEPAB), and funded by TRAID and the Big Lottery Fund, we have [...]
Croydon Council has given its citizens an early Christmas present by committing to end the use of the controversial weed killer glyphosate in all of it public parks and green spaces. At a full council meeting on Tuesday 3rd December, in answer to a question from Councillor Nina Degrads, Councillor Stuart [...]
December 3rd 2018, is the 34th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster when a gas tank exploded in a Union Carbide pesticide factory in India, killing thousands of people. To date, half a million people have suffered from health consequences linked to that disaster. Elderly survivors of the Bhopal disaster [...]
John Wilson is a new campaigner who has recently launched a Pesticide-Free Towns campaign in Newcastle. He shares his motivations and campaign progression below: I have been lobbying Newcastle Council to stop using glyphosate-based weed killer for over 15 years. I did this first as an individual and now, for [...]
EUROPEANS JOIN FORCES CALLING FOR A HIGHER LEVEL OF PROTECTION FROM PESTICIDES (31st October 2018) We've joined forces with EU and national civil society organisations including ClientEarth, Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO), Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL), Global 2000 (Austria), Generations Futures (France) and Justice Pesticides (France), as a coalition manifesto for “rigorous science, safe [...]
by Josie Cohen, Head of Policy & Campaigns (26th October, 2018) The Agriculture Bill currently going through parliament is the first chance the UK has had since 1947 to fundamentally reshape how we grow our food. It offers us the opportunity to usher in a new era of sustainable agriculture which better protects both human health and our natural environment. From PAN UK’s [...]
(18th October 2018) In September, the GMB Union joined an ever-growing range of voices calling for the UK government to immediately ban glyphosate. Glyphosate is the world’s most widely used weedkiller which was declared as ‘probably carcinogenic’ by the World Health Organisation in 2015. As well as being used widely [...]
by Selam Yilma, Communications Officer, PAN Ethiopia (19th September 2018) Pesticide Action Nexus Ethiopia (PAN Ethiopia) has taken on the role of implementing the 'information and communication pillar' of the Ecological Organic Agriculture (EOA) initiative in Ethiopia. This pillar works to complement the work of other EOA partners through creating increased awareness and knowledge [...]
by Keith Tyrell, Director, PAN UK On Friday, 10th August, a jury in California came to a momentous judgement: it agreed with a school groundsman’s claim that his rare form of cancer was caused by exposure to the herbicide known as Roundup. The case has huge implications for glyphosate – the [...]
by Dr Stephanie Williamson, Staff Scientist, PAN UK (9th August 2018) Agroecological approaches to farming are receiving increasing attention, both at international policy level and in some countries’ national programmes. PAN UK’s Agroecology web section gives readers a brief description of agroecology. It also provides case studies in coffee, pineapples [...]
La Nación newspaper, Costa Rica, 29th August 2017 Translated from Spanish by PAN UK Processing plant will serve as a better means of dealing with foliage waste left over after harvesting pineapple fruit Machinery will also generate biogas fuel to generate electricity Creation of environment-friendly biofertiliser The first processing unit [...]
by Jorge Solano, Technical Dept., Eurofertil S.A., Costa Rica (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Key messages: With increasingly degraded, acidic and eroded soils, biological factors, as well as the usual [...]
by Renan Bajurto, Ecological Coffee Cooperative 'La Labor' (COCAFELOL) (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Key messages: Each farm is a different world- it’s important not only to train farmers but [...]
by Antonio Alberto Tzep Lopez and Diego Chox Dix, Cooperative Nahuala (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Key messages: Using natural ingredients instead of synthetic agrochemical inputs can give good results [...]
by Juan R. Montero Gamboa & Ing. Gabriel Umana AEA León Cortés, Monsol Sustainable Farm, Los Santos Zone, Costa Rica (This post is part of a summary of presentations prepared by Dr Stephanie Williamson, PAN UK, from the Coffee without HHPs workshop in Costa Rica, April 2017) Shade management at Monsol [...]
