LEAF Speak Out: Difficult Questions - Arable

Why do you spray the veg­eta­bles you sell in the farm shop?

Like plants in your gar­den, veg­etable crops can be sus­cep­ti­ble to dis­eases and pests. We may also want to con­trol weeds, as a gar­den­er might do in their flower beds. We spray the crops to con­trol dis­eases, pests or weeds and to make sure that we don’t waste the veg­eta­bles that suc­cumb to a dis­ease such as blight in potatoes.

What do you think about GM crops?

GM, or biotech­nol­o­gy, is a tech­nol­o­gy that can be use­ful in some sit­u­a­tions. For exam­ple, in very dry coun­tries, biotech­nol­o­gy can help plants to become more resilient to sur­vive with very lit­tle water. In parts of the world that are very dry, GM crops could mean the dif­fer­ence between being able to grow crops, or not. 

Sprays kill bees, what is your view on this?

Farm­ers have changed many of their spray­ing prac­tices to min­i­mize the impact on bees, for exam­ple, using bio­log­i­cal con­trol, such as intro­duc­ing a small worm, called a nema­tode, that is specif­i­cal­ly bred to kill slugs by bur­row­ing into them and eat­ing them from the inside out! Also, if farm­ers do apply an insec­ti­cide to a crop, they are advised to spray these at night when the bees aren’t active.

Is it dan­ger­ous to live/​walk/​have schools near farm­ers’ fields when they are spraying?

Crop pro­tec­tion prod­ucts are rig­or­ous­ly test­ed, even more so than drugs for human beings, before they are con­sid­ered safe to apply to field crops. If you are con­cerned about being out­side when farm­ers are spray­ing, ask your local farmer to let you know when they plan to spray, so that you plan your day accordingly.

Why aren’t you an organ­ic farmer?

I have cho­sen not to be, but I do fol­low many of the prin­ci­ples of organ­ic farm­ing, such as look­ing after my soils, using farm ani­mal muck as fer­tilis­er and some farm­ers, who aren’t organ­ic, use bio­log­i­cal con­trol for pests — such as intro­duc­ing a small worm, called a nema­tode, that is specif­i­cal­ly bred to kill slugs by bur­row­ing into them and eat­ing them from the inside out!

Why do you grow oilseed rape? It gives me hay fever.

Oilseed rape is an impor­tant crop for us. We sup­ply it to com­pa­nies who crush it for biodiesel, cook­ing oils or indus­tri­al lubri­cants. It is also impor­tant for our crop rota­tion, because we har­vest it ear­ly in the sum­mer, mak­ing it eas­i­er for us to do all the cul­ti­va­tion that we need to drill our fol­low­ing crop ahead of the win­ter. Hay fever may also be trig­gered by flow­er­ing grass­es, rather than oilseed rape.