Scottish arable farmers who have up until now had a range of pesticides to deal with crop disease and pest problems now have greatly reduced resources as a result of European Union legislation.
And potato growers meeting in Perth were told yesterday by Dr Peter Brain, of agrichemical giant Bayer Crop Science, that the rate of new products now coming through the approval system was dramatically slowing down.
Many of the banned substances, such as sulphuric acid, mono linuron and paraquat, were used extensively in potato production but they have now gone and Brain, describing the reduced number of new pesticides coming through, said there was “no cavalry waiting in the wings”.