by Keith Tyrell, Director, PAN UK Three decades ago, as a young graduate I embarked on a career in environmental and safety management. One of my first jobs was working on the safety systems of highly hazardous industries like oil and gas and chemical plants to ensure that the risk [...]
by Sarah Haynes, Collaboration Coordinator, hosted by PAN UK Over the last few months, PAN UK and RSPB have mobilised 45 organisations and individual farmers and academics to respond collectively to the UK Government’s public consultation on the revised UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides [...]
In a comprehensive study released today, scientists report that pesticide poisonings on farms around the world have risen dramatically since the last global assessment 30 years ago. Based on an evaluation of available poisoning data from countries all over the world, the researchers conclude that there are about 385 million [...]
Trade deals, pesticides and why we have joined the Future British Standards Coalition by Josie Cohen, Head of Policy & Campaigns, PAN UK PAN UK is proud to have been invited to join the recently-launched Future British Standards Coalition. We will be providing expertise on pesticides to this new panel [...]
Moise and Celestine shared the tragic story of their son dying from pesticide poisoning. Credit PAN UK by Sheila Willis, Head of International Programmes, PAN UK Last November, I was collecting data in Benin, West Africa. While in Dassa, we were joined by farmers who had agreed [...]
by Nick Mole, Policy Officer, PAN UK UPDATE (26th Oct 2020): FRANCE AND NEONICOTINOIDS There are mixed messages coming from France about the continued use of neonicotinoid insecticides. On the one hand the European Court of Justice ruled that France was entirely within its rights [...]
by Josie Cohen, Head of Policy & Campaigns, PAN UK I joined PAN UK in June 2017 to help ensure that UK pesticide standards didn’t drop as a result of Brexit. There was a flurry of activity at the time and, over the next 18 months, we were kept [...]
by Koen Hertoge, PAN Europe and Peter Clausing, PAN Germany Agricultural pesticide drift contaminates children's playgrounds - Image: Shutterstock Fruit and wine production is among the agricultural sectors with the highest pesticide applications. Yet, the extent to which such public places are affected by pesticide drift from agricultural [...]
by Michel Pimbert, Professor of Agroecology and Food Politics at Coventry University Pesticide companies are caught up in a fierce competition for survival. In the current context of global mergers and restructurings, transnational corporations need to continuously increase their sales of synthetic pesticides in every possible corner of the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
(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 [...]
by Prof Michael Eddleston and Dr Leah Utyasheva Highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs) not only harm our health and environment and pollute our food and water.1 They also cause over 150,000 suicide deaths globally each year. Out of the 800 000 individuals who die from suicide worldwide each year - one death every [...]
As the Better Cotton Initiative General Assembly opens, PAN UK publishes a revised version of its report on global pesticide use in cotton. The revised report includes new data on the United States Cotton sector’s pesticide use provided by Cotton Incorporated, and includes a reanalysis of official US government data. [...]
In 2015, the Center for International Environmental Law published a report ‘Lowest Common Denominator’ which examined how a proposed EU-US trade deal could weaken European standards of protection from toxic pesticides. The report analyses recommendations from pesticide industry lobby groups – CropLife America (CPA) and the European Crop Protection Association [...]
Great result for pollinators as ban on bee-toxic pesticides made permanent Today’s news that the European Commission has extended – and made permanent – the existing ban on three bee-toxic neonicotinoids is warmly welcomed by Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK). After spending more than a decade warning of the [...]
by Colin Toogood, Campaigns Manager at Bhopal Medical Appeal Over the past few years, plans have been afoot for the world’s largest chemical companies to merge into giant, new mega-corporations. Among the markets they seek to control, through these manoeuvres, is the supply of food where sterile crops grown in [...]
