NORTHUMBERLAND’S new NFU chairman has welcomed the European Chemicals Agency announcement this week that glyphosate should not be classified as a carcinogen.

The agency said it had reviewed all the scientific evidence available on the world’s most widely-used weedkiller and concluded that it did not meet the criteria required to prove the chemical causes cancer.

The future of glyphosate, the key ingredient in Roundup which farmers have relied on for more than 40 years, has been hotly debated during a review by the European Commission.

A decision will be made by the end of the year whether it will be reauthorised for use over the next 15 years.

While the battle had yet to be won, Hugh Richardson, who took up his NFU post last month, said the ECHA verdict was a major step in the right direction.

From the family farm at Wheelbirks, near Stocksfield, he said: “Glyphosate is such a useful tool for us – we have no other product that will kill plants as effectively – that any decision to ban it would have to be made on the basis of specific, proven risks and not just on perception.

“We know tobacco causes cancer, but that isn’t banned. Why not? Yet they are talking about banning something with a perceived risk.

“There is no argument except that tobacco raises huge amounts of income for governments!”

There was no reliable and effective alternative to glyphosate and that was worrying, given the threat hanging over it, he said.

Without it, cereal crops could be wetter at the point of transport, which would make an impact too.

“If you have a wet season you can spray this product, which is deactivated by soil organics, to help dry out the crop,” he said.

“But if you aren’t allowed to use it, you could have cereal weighing in at 30 per cent moisture rather than, say, 14 per cent, so for every 10 wagons needed to haul dry goods you might need an extra one to compensate for the heavier wet grains.”

The number of extra lorries on the road, using fuel and adding to air pollution, were part of the equation.

But most of all, glyphosate was the pest and disease killer of choice and if it was banned, farmers would have a mighty task on their hands if fields needed to be cleaned up.

Hugh said: “We need to assess the risks of this product based on real, scientific evidence and we need to be proportionate in our response, because we need the chemicals in our arsenal to fight diseases and pests – we need to have the tools to do the job.”