This is a subscriber-only article
Austria has become the first EU country to vote to ban the use of the herbicide active ingredient glyphosate on a national scale.
If the bill is ratified, the law would take effect on January 1, 2020. In late 2017, the EU decided to renew the glyphosate licence for five years.
A 2015 study by the World Health Organisation found that the herbicide glyphosate was “probably” carcinogenic to humans.
However, this finding has been contested by multiple organisations and studies, including the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European Chemicals Agency, the US EPA, Health Canada, the Joint FAO/WHO meeting on pesticide residues and the National Institute of Health 2018 Agricultural Health Study, which determined that glyphosate was unlikely to pose a cancer risk to humans.
Chlorothalonil
While the inevitable loss of chlorothalonil has been known now for a few months, the specific dates on which final sale and use are now also agreed. The revocation of the active was published on 20 May and this would normally be followed by final sales six months later. However, given the importance of the active to the cereal sector here, the Department has extended the sale of chlorothalonil products to the end of March 2020.
This was important for orders to be processed and products manufactured. However, the use-by date, which is the last legal date that a product can be applied to a crop, remains at 20 May 2020.
These dates apply to all products that contain chlorothalonil, including Bravo, Amistar Opti, and Balear.
SHARING OPTIONS: