Deadline for GB-wide pesticide registration looms

Time is running out for farmers and growers in Britain who use pesticides to register their business details on a government database.

The requirement to register by 22 June 2022 falls under The Official Controls (Plant Protection Products) Regulations 2020.

See also: Scottish farm groups call for earlier BPS payments

Any business that uses plant protection products (PPPs) and adjuvants professionally, including livestock producers, must comply.

The ruling applies to England, Scotland and Wales and details must include:

• Business name and addresses where products are supplied and stored
• How much product is used
• Quantities stored
• Annual applications.

Strutt & Parker farming consultant David Hurst said the announcement, made a month ago, had come as a surprise.

“We are aware that many producers have yet to fill out the form and the process will require looking back through previous records,” Mr Hurst said.

He stressed that all addresses where products are stored and used must be added.

“For example, if the PPPs are stored at two addresses and the records are kept at a separate office, all three addresses must be registered,” Mr Hurst explained.

Businesses where PPPs and adjuvants are applied by a third party must also register their details.

However, while contractors need to register the address where chemicals are stored, they do not have to fill out their clients’ details. 

Answering a question on the quantity of PPPs applied in a typical year, Defra advised that contractors should include the total amount of PPPs and adjuvants applied for all clients.

NFU lobbying

Following successful lobbying by the NFU, Defra has changed the registration form so users can now record their involvement in assurance schemes. This could lead to being able to take into account earned recognition.

The NFU said this would go some way to allaying members’ frustrations about potential duplication of effort.

Farmers who have already filled in the registration form, can complete it again and re-submit it, so these details are captured.

NFU vice-president David Exwood said: “While Defra’s intention appears to have been to keep this simple, farmers on the ground see these new requirements as a burden and understandably have a lot of questions about them.

“It is good that Defra is starting to respond to these concerns we’ve already raised with them.”