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Farmers can use banned pesticide to combat sugar beet virus in the UK
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Farmers can use banned pesticide to combat sugar beet virus in the UK
East Anglia’s sugar beet growers have been granted an emergency authorisation for the “limited and controlled” use of a banned pesticide to save disease-ravaged crops.
Following severe crop damage from virus yellows disease, the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) submitted an application for the temporary use of neonicotinoids – seed treatments banned in 2019 due to fears over their impact on the health of bees and pollinators.
The chemicals were previous used to control virus-carrying aphids, which have since infected sugar beet fields and pose a significant potential danger to the 2021 crop.
The government issued a statement which says the “special circumstances” met the legal requirements for a temporary emergency derogation, and approved the chemical for use in 2021 on England’s sugar beet – much of which is grown in Norfolk and Suffolk.
It says as sugar beet is a non-flowering plant, the risk to bees from the crop itself is “acceptable”, while herbicides must be used to kill flowering weeds in and around the crop.
Other restrictions include that no flowering crop is to be planted within 22 months of the sugar beet crop, and no oilseed rape crop is to be planted within 32 months.
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