Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the restrictions the conditions placed on the authorisation of neonicotinoid use for sugar beet will have on normal crop rotations followed by farmers.
The restrictions on the planting of following crops mean that no flowering crop will be planted until spring 2023 and no oilseed rape will be planted until spring 2024 (as oilseed rape is overwhelmingly autumn-sown, little will be planted until August/September 2024). There is data on the rate at which thiamethoxam breaks down in soil over time and so we know that these periods will result in substantial reductions in the quantities available for uptake by flowering crops.
These restrictions will be manageable for most growers within their own crop rotation plans. Where this is not the case, farmers have the option not to grow sugar beet or to do so without the neonicotinoid seed treatment.