Pesticides in berry fruit farming

Thanks to polytunnels, the amount of chemicals used on the farms is significantly reduced. Polytunnels keep the fruit dry, so the number one enemy of berry growers – botrytis or ‘grey mould’ – has been largely eradicated. And the pesticides that are being used are generally more benign than those that would be needed without polytunnels.

All crop-protecting treatments used to grow strawberries in the UK are approved for use by the Pesticide Safety Directorate, a branch of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The directorate assesses the risk of chemicals to both people and the environment and regulates their use to ensure the minimum impact on everything other than the target pest or disease. All growers in the UK are members of the Assured Produce Scheme, which also sets standards for good practice in the application of pesticides.

Residue levels are constantly checked by growers, marketing organisations, retailers and government agencies to ensure they remain within acceptable levels. HHP only uses crop protectants in consultation with qualified advisers, and they are applied only by trained and certified spray operators.

We operate an Integrated Crop Management (ICM) strategy where we only spray where, first, a BASIS (British Agrochemical Standards Inspection Scheme) qualified advisor has walked the crop and observed thresholds of pests or weeds, and applied pesticides when they have reached commercially damaging levels.