It doesn't have the catchiest of titles and had it not been for a little tweaking, the EC Directive 91/414 would have happily remained buried in piles of other legislation.

Two years ago, bureaucrats in Brussels mentioned that the laws governing the use of pesticides needed a bit of a revamp, but no one took much notice, and before farmers had rallied themselves, the makeover was complete.

Philip Huxtable is one of those taken by surprise – as he told
the team from Brussels who came to East Yorkshire to see
him recently.

It is only months since he first heard of a proposal to ban most of his favourite chemicals, because they might be doing harm to humans – although nobody has proved they are. But the plan has been an ambition of the green movement for years and under formal discussion in Brussels since July 2006.

By the time farmers realised they had been outflanked, it was too late to stop the European Commission putting a proposal in front of MEPs which would ban 20 per cent of the farmer's chemical armoury. Last month, thanks to a complicated interplay of loyalties and alliances, the MEPs not only approved but doubled the list – and paved the way for doubling it again in five years.

The farmers say the consequences will be productivity slashed, prices up, and Europe dependent on less finicky parts of the world for some basics.

The "greens" say this is scare-mongering. But the farmers have serious support – the Government's Pesticides Safety Directorate; the agricultural advisory service, ADAS, which used to be part of Defra; experts of similar weight in Germany, Italy and Ireland, and Defra boss Hilary Benn.

At the Great Yorkshire Show last week, Mr Benn made clear that he shares the farmers' worries about the draft Directive. And our graphic shows what it would do to Mr Huxtable's spraying programme.

But Mr Benn may not be able to stop it happening.

The hijacking of what should have been a simple update to a 1991 rule is a tribute to the sophistication of green politics – and a reminder of how far Brussels can sometimes be from general public opinion.

The new draft Directive has its roots in a decade of research hinting that chemical build-ups in soil and water might be causing sick babies, cancer and asthma. Now, the prospects of economic recession and even food shortages are putting a new perspective on those concerns.

Mr Huxtable summed up: "I am asked to produce safe, wholesome food as cheaply as possible. I am asked to produce fuel crops, using the same land. But my hands are going to be tied behind my back. The tools of my trade are going to be taken away."

He is head agronomist of JSR Farming, a pig and arable operation on 3,600 hectares in a 25-mile radius around a headquarters at Southburn, near Driffield. He has 30 years experience of spraying. All the products he uses have already been passed as safe if used properly.

But the new Directive allows for no argument about circumstances and precautions – if a product fails any one of a range of tests on lab rats, it is banned, full stop.

The UK is calling for cut-off criteria to be replaced by risk assessments, which, to draw a parallel, would mean counting cases of caffeine poisoning rather than banning coffee to be on the safe side.

As far as possible, JSR already uses crop rotation, hand-weeding, and other natural methods to control pests, weeds and disease. Mr Huxtable sums up: "Chemicals are expensive. We don't use them unless we need to. But potatoes, for a start, would simply not be worth growing on any scale without them."

His chemical "toolbox" looks formidable but is nothing exceptional. Everything has its use at a different time in the growing cycle.

He was lined up by the European Crop Protection Association, representing the agrochemicals manufacturers, to put a local face to an appeal to everyone to write to their MEPs to say that fewer farmers and higher prices are not what they want right now.

The ECPA is an organisation with a great big special interest, of course. But on the way from Leeds Bradford Airport to Driffield, its governmental affairs manager, Stephan Schraff, told a convincing story of how such a farming-unfriendly law was born.

The greens are influential in some European parliaments. French president Nicolas Sarkozy has, surprisingly, put France on their side on this issue, as part of his new-broom image.

There are farmers who use a lot of pesticides but do not want to shout about it, like those in Spain's giant fruit and salad industry.

There are politicians and civil servants who are locked into alliances they cannot opt out of, and many who know very little about agriculture. At crucial points in the debate, the EC's consumer protection arm had the tactical advantage over the agricultural commission. And when Mr Benn was last at a Council of Ministers on the topic, the best he could do was abstain from a vote he was clearly going to lose.

Decisions were made before arguments were over, because the machinations of European government have to be limited by time or they would never produce anything. And inside all this confusion, the lobbyists have been talking into the right ears in the right places.

There is still hope of blocking or changing the regulation on
its second reading. Otherwise, it will take effect in 2010. It is a
tight fight. But the protests from the UK, and Mr Benn's support for a compromise, have made an impact on Labour MEPs and they are raising their doubts in the European socialist group – which until now has been
voting with the Greens on the issue.

At the Great Yorkshire Show, it was pointed out to Mr Benn
that half his job seemed to be trying to get the rest of Europe
to water down regulations he clearly wished had never
been made – electronic sheep-tagging being another prime example.

He talked about the long gestations of European law, he is locked into
agreements made long before his time.

Then he added, with more feeling than Ministers normally show: "If you want to draw a lesson, it is: Think about the consequences before you legislate."