I'm a Yorkshire farmer - trust science not spin when it comes to Glyphosate: James Mills

Yet Cathy Cliff, a Campaign Coordinator at the Soil Association, in her recent article on the subject, uses the highly selective interpretation to call for the introduction of unnecessary restrictions on the use of Glyphosate.

Without any context, you would have been forgiven for spitting out that steak, swapping your morning brew for a debatable looking green juice and fearing the return of Covid. The latter is not because of the disease, but because you may have to dig out those clippers and cut your partner’s hair. And there was me thinking my ears were the ones at risk, not my wife’s health!

A rather jolly quip at one of the quirks of our society dealing with the pandemic belies a far more important comparison. As we all cowered in our houses, collectively we put our faith in modern science to save us.

Huge sums of money were spent developing vaccines in a short space of time and we relied on the relevant authorities to ensure the risk of rolling out the vaccines was worthwhile. 92 per cent of us did so and opted to have a vaccine. Thank heavens we did.

Those using highly selective interpretations of science were labelled anti-vaxxers. The parallels with the Glyphosate debate are stark.

Glyphosate is the most widely tested agro chemical in the world. As a substance it was first brought to market in 1974. By my reckoning that is 52 years of testing and retesting. Yet the most credible opposition to its use would categorise its chances of causing cancer as lower than a well-done bacon sandwich (IARC category 1A).

Farming in North Yorkshire, I have used Glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant. It is not a decision we take lightly and in a year like last where we were blessed with a summer to remember, the sprayer didn’t leave the yard. However, in some years to have not done so would have seen yield losses and created further emissions by having to dry grain. Perhaps even more vitally, it has revolutionised our cultivation and planting methods. We now drill directly into the residues of the previous crop, locking in carbon and building vital organic matter.

The total weight of pesticides used in the UK has reduced by 60 per cent since 1990. Farmers are professional users of these products, sitting tests and undertaking continual training to ensure we can do so. Throw in the fiscal frugality that is rightly attributed to the farming fraternity, and you build a far more accurate picture of when and why farmers use these products.

We have seen the deindustrialisation of our country over the last 50 years. The Soil Association’s campaign will simply accelerate that process in our countryside. It will drive up domestic cost of production, further disadvantaging UK farmers, while at the same time seeing a rise of imports produced using products they would see restricted here. I see little positive in that result for the environment or our rural communities.

So, rather than the Soil Association’s calls on you all to pressure Government into an anti-science decision, I would ask you to remember the relief we all felt when Covid was wrestled under control by trusting science, not spin.