The government has agreed to tighten rules on pesticide safety assessments in line with recommendations by an independent committee.

The recommendations were made by the Bystander Risk Assessment Working Group (BRAWG) which filed its report in December 2012.

After deliberating for 12 months the government has finally announced that it has accepted all of the working group’s recommendations

BRAWG’s recommendations were:

• Risk assessments to be developed for bystanders and residents
  
• Risk assessments based on 2m distance between sprayer and bystander rather than current 8m distance
  
• Cumulative effect of long-term exposure as well as single exposures to be considered
  
• Risks to children and adults assessed separately
  
• Further review and updating of assessments as more evidence emerges.

DEFRA said the policy would apply to all pesticides undergoing the regulatory process and that the update to the risk assessment was in line with the latest science.

It added that it would work closely with the European Food Safety Authority to ensure that the BRAWG recommendations were taken forward across Europe.

Long-time pesticide campaigner Georgina Downs has hailed DEFRA’s move as a “significant victory”.

Ms Downs has carried out a 12-year campaign for tougher constraints on crop spraying near residential areas. In 2009 she mounted a legal challenge against government policy on the issue and that challenge led to a call by DEFRA for a review to existing laws on exposure and risk assessments.

Ms Downs said: “By accepting all the BRAWG report recommendations government is finally acknowledging that the risk assessment approach relied upon to date has been inadequate.”

But she added that more constraints were needed as the assumed 2m distance failed to recognise property boundaries were often within a metre of field 
sprayers.

“The government must now as a matter of urgency secure the protection of people in the countryside by prohibiting the use of pesticides in substantial distances in the locality of residents’ homes, schools and playgrounds,” she said.

NFU plant health adviser Don Pendergrast said: “The decision reflects the continuous development of regulatory risk assessment. Its major focus is rightly on the safety, in the main, of spray operators and agricultural workers.”