IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jagris/v8y2018i8p123-d162655.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Pesticide Use in Northern Ireland’s Arable Crops from 1992–2016 and Implications for Future Policy Development

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Jess

    (Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, 18a Newforge Lane, Belfast BT9 5PX, UK)

  • David I. Matthews

    (Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, 18a Newforge Lane, Belfast BT9 5PX, UK)

  • Archie K. Murchie

    (Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, 18a Newforge Lane, Belfast BT9 5PX, UK)

  • Michael K. Lavery

    (Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, 18a Newforge Lane, Belfast BT9 5PX, UK)

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the objective for the United Kingdom (UK) government policy and legislation on crop protection practices has been to minimise the impact of pesticide use in agriculture and horticulture to the wider environment. Subsequent European Union (EU) policy and legislation have also targeted this objective through a demanding approvals process, competency tests for users, maximum residue limits, regular post-registration monitoring and the promotion of integrated pest and disease management techniques. However, none of this substantive regulation refers to target reduction levels for pesticide use. Since 1992, the number of arable farms in Northern Ireland has decreased by 61% with a consequent reduction of 34% in the area of arable crops grown. Despite this reduction in area of arable crops grown, the area treated by the major pesticide groups increased by 49% due to intensification, but the weight of major pesticides applied to arable crops decreased by 37%. However, the intensity of application measured by the total quantity of all pesticides applied to the basic area of arable crops treated remained relatively constant at approximately 3.2 kg/ha. Pesticide usage trends and reduction policies in other geographic regions are also discussed for comparative purposes.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Jess & David I. Matthews & Archie K. Murchie & Michael K. Lavery, 2018. "Pesticide Use in Northern Ireland’s Arable Crops from 1992–2016 and Implications for Future Policy Development," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 8(8), pages 1-16, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:8:p:123-:d:162655
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/8/123/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/8/8/123/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Böcker & Robert Finger, 2016. "European Pesticide Tax Schemes in Comparison: An Analysis of Experiences and Developments," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-22, April.
    2. Fernandez-Cornejo, Jorge & Nehring, Richard & Osteen, Craig & Wechsler, Seth James & Martin, Andrew & Vialou, Alex, 2014. "Pesticide Use in U.S. Agriculture: 21 Selected Crops, 1960-2008," Economic Information Bulletin 178462, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    3. Ben A. Woodcock & Nicholas J. B. Isaac & James M. Bullock & David B. Roy & David G. Garthwaite & Andrew Crowe & Richard F. Pywell, 2016. "Impacts of neonicotinoid use on long-term population changes in wild bees in England," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 7(1), pages 1-8, November.
    4. Bailey, Alastair & Bertaglia, Marco & Fraser, Iain & Sharma, Abhijit & Douarin, Elodie, 2009. "Integrated Pest Management Portfolios in UK Arable Farming: Results of a Farmer Survey," MPRA Paper 14764, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mario Fargnoli & Mara Lombardi & Daniele Puri, 2019. "Applying Hierarchical Task Analysis to Depict Human Safety Errors during Pesticide Use in Vineyard Cultivation," Agriculture, MDPI, vol. 9(7), pages 1-18, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Centner, Terence J. & Brewer, Brady & Leal, Isaac, 2018. "Reducing damages from sulfoxaflor use through mitigation measures to increase the protection of pollinator species," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 70-76.
    2. Hannah Romanowski & Lauren Blake, 2023. "Neonicotinoid seed treatment on sugar beet in England: a qualitative analysis of the controversy, existing policy and viability of alternatives," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 13(3), pages 453-472, September.
    3. Marco Medici & Damion Dooley & Maurizio Canavari, 2022. "PestOn: An Ontology to Make Pesticides Information Easily Accessible and Interoperable," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-12, May.
    4. Patricia A. Henríquez-Piskulich & Constanza Schapheer & Nicolas J. Vereecken & Cristian Villagra, 2021. "Agroecological Strategies to Safeguard Insect Pollinators in Biodiversity Hotspots: Chile as a Case Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-31, June.
    5. Margaux Lapierre & Alexandre Sauquet & Julie Subervie, 2019. "Providing technical assistance to peer networks to reduce pesticide use in Europe: Evidence from the French Ecophyto plan," Working Papers hal-02190979, HAL.
    6. Piwowar, Arkadiusz, 2018. "The Consumption of Mineral Fertilizers and Herbicides in Poland Against the Background of the European Union," Problems of World Agriculture / Problemy Rolnictwa Światowego, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, vol. 18(33, Part ), March.
    7. Magali Aubert & Geoffroy Enjolras, 2017. "Are EU subsidies a springboard to the reduction of pesticide use?," Post-Print hal-02733800, HAL.
    8. Waters, James, 2013. "The influence of information sources on inter- and intra-firm diffusion: evidence from UK farming," MPRA Paper 50955, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Abhijit Sharma & Alastair Bailey & Iain Fraser, 2011. "Technology Adoption and Pest Control Strategies Among UK Cereal Farmers: Evidence from Parametric and Nonparametric Count Data Models," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(1), pages 73-92, February.
    10. Schmidt, Stefan & Seppelt, Ralf, 2018. "Information content of global ecosystem service databases and their suitability for decision advice," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 32(PA), pages 22-40.
    11. Tilman Reinhardt, 2023. "The farm to fork strategy and the digital transformation of the agrifood sector—An assessment from the perspective of innovation systems," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 45(2), pages 819-838, June.
    12. Emily B Dennis & Byron J T Morgan & Stephen N Freeman & Martin S Ridout & Tom M Brereton & Richard Fox & Gary D Powney & David B Roy, 2017. "Efficient occupancy model-fitting for extensive citizen-science data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, March.
    13. Niklas Möhring & Martina Bozzola & Stefan Hirsch & Robert Finger, 2020. "Are pesticides risk decreasing? The relevance of pesticide indicator choice in empirical analysis," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 51(3), pages 429-444, May.
    14. Blaydes, H. & Potts, S.G. & Whyatt, J.D. & Armstrong, A., 2021. "Opportunities to enhance pollinator biodiversity in solar parks," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    15. Faure, Jérôme & Mouysset, Lauriane & Gaba, Sabrina, 2023. "Combining incentives with collective action to provide pollination and a bundle of ecosystem services in farmland," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    16. Gu, Xi & Marsh, Thomas L., 2017. "Pesticide Substitution Under Maximum Residue Limits: Application to Hops Production," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258572, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    17. Ke, Xinli & Chen, Jing & Zuo, Chengchao & Wang, Xiaoqian, 2024. "The cropland intensive utilisation transition in China: An induced factor substitution perspective," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    18. Daniel Slunge & Francisco Alpizar, 2019. "Market-Based Instruments for Managing Hazardous Chemicals: A Review of the Literature and Future Research Agenda," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-20, August.
    19. Stéphane Couture & Stéphane Lemarié & Sabrina Teyssier & Pascal Toquebeuf, 2024. "The value of information under ambiguity: a theoretical and experimental study on pest management in agriculture," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 96(1), pages 19-47, February.
    20. Anita Alves Pena & Bryanna Dixon, 2022. "Pesticide exposure and the physical and economic health of US crop workers," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 44(4), pages 2087-2114, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jagris:v:8:y:2018:i:8:p:123-:d:162655. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.