Notes - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 200

UK£600 million between 2000-2005 on capital expenditure alone due to
continuing deterioration of 'raw water' quality due to all factors. Ofwat predicts
capital expenditure for pesticides to fall to UK£88 million per year at the end
of the 1990s/early 2000s, and for nitrate to fall to UK£8.3 million per year.
Although Ofwat has sought to standardize reporting, individual companies
report that water treatment costs in different ways. Most distinguish treatment
for pesticides, nitrate, Cryptosporidium , and several metals (iron, manganese and
lead). The remaining treatment costs for phosphorus, soil removal, arsenic and
other metals appear under a category labelled 'other'. Of the 28 water companies
in England and Wales, 3 report no expenditure on treatment whatsoever; and a
further 3 do not disaggregate treatment costs, with all appearing under 'other'.
Twenty companies report expenditure on removal of pesticides, 11 on nitrates,
and 10 on Cryptosporidium . It is impossible to tell from the records whether a stated
zero expenditure is actually zero, or whether this has been placed in the 'other'
category. Using Ofwat and water companies' returns, we estimate that 50 per
cent of expenditure under the 'other' category refers to the removal of agri-
culturally related materials.
16 We originally calculated the annual external costs of these gases to be
UK£280 million for methane, UK£738 million for nitrous oxide, UK£47
million for carbon dioxide, and UK£48 million for ammonia. But a later analysis
of marginal costs (Hartridge and Pearce, 2001) suggests that costs are lower for
methane (UK£83 million), nitrous oxide (UK£290 million) and carbon dioxide
(UK£22 million), putting the total at UK£444 million per year.
17 DETR, 1998a, 1998b; Pretty, 1998; Campbell et al, 1997; Pain and
Pienkowski, 1997; Mason, 1998; Siriwardena et al, 1998; Krebs et al, 1999.
18 Repetto and Baliga, 1996; Pearce and Tinch, 1998; HSE, 1998a; 1998b;
Pretty, 1998.
19 Fatalities from pesticides at work in Europe and North America are rare:
one a decade in the UK, and eight a decade in California. In the UK, a variety
of institutions collect mortality and morbidity data; but in California, where
there is the most comprehensive reporting system in the world, official records
show that 1200-2000 farmers, farm workers and the general public are poisoned
each year (see CDFA, passim; Pretty, 1998). There appears to be greater risk from
pesticides in the home and garden where children are most likely to suffer. In
Britain, 600-1000 people need hospital treatment each year from home
poisoning.
20 On food poisoning in the UK, see PHL, 1999; Evans et al, 1998; Wall
et al, 1996. For a study of food-borne illnesses in Sweden, see Lindqvist et al,
2001. When bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was first identified in
late 1986, research confirmed that it was a member of a group of transmissible
diseases occurring in animals and humans. It appeared simultaneously in several
places in the UK, and has since occurred in native-born cattle in other countries.
By mid 2001, more than 180,000 cases had been confirmed in the UK, the
epidemic having reached a peak in 1992. The link between BSE and variant
Creutzveldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) in humans was confirmed in 1996; 100 deaths