Environmental risk of chemical agriculture - Environmental Deterioration and Contamination: Problems and their Management - page 94

Green agroecology has the aim to harmonize natural and agroecosystems by
decreasing the adverse impacts of agriculture and increasing the biological and trophic
complexity of the agricultural system as well as reducing the nutrient inputs and
uncontrolled outflows, by organic farming, buffer strips, wetlands, etc.
Deterioration and pollution of surface waters, subsurface waters and soils are
closely related to agriculture at expanded areas throughout the world. The typically
diffuse pollution originating from agriculture occurs at both catchment and regional
scales.
Chemical agriculture is responsible for water pollution from/through nutrient and
pesticide uses and also for the indirect adverse effects due to poor agrotechnologies,
which increases the risk of erosion, deflation, desertification, compaction, sodifica-
tion, salinization and decline of organic matter content in the soils. This decreases
the contaminant buffering capacity of the soils which should protect water and plants
(humans) from mobile and bioavailable contaminants.
2 REGULATION OF PESTICIDES INTHE EUROPEAN UNION
The application of pesticides in the European Union (EU) is regulated by Directive
2009/128/EC (Pesticide Directive, 2009), the provisions of which had to be incor-
porated into the legal practice of each Member State by 2011. The purpose of the
directive is to achieve sustainable application of pesticides, the reduction of risks to
human health and the environment, as well as the promotion of integrated pest man-
agement and other techniques allowing lower pesticide usage. The directive contains an
entire article on the vocational training of pesticide practitioners, making such training
an authority task, with special emphasis on proper qualification of the distributors,
and providing information on environmental and health risks to end users and to the
general public.
A separate article deals with the legal prerequisites and approval of equipment
for pesticide application and their use. Pesticide drift is predominantly affected by
application at proper weather conditions, as well as by the physical characteristics and
good technical condition of the equipment. This pertains particularly to aerial appli-
cations, and consequently, separate legal measures regulate this treatment category. As
from 2013, aircraft may perform pesticide application onlywith accessories allowing
the use of the best available technology. Even at that technical level, aerial applica-
tion can be used only if other (land-based technology) technologies are not viable or
are unambiguously more detrimental to the environment or human health than aerial
treatments.
To protect aquatic environments and drinking water supplies, the Directive
gives preference to active ingredients of pesticides not classified as dangerous to the
aquatic environment by Directive 1999/45/EC (CLP, 1999) and do not contain prior-
ity hazardous substances specified in Directive 2000/60/EC, the EU Water Framework
Directive (WFD, 2000). Measures to protect public health have also been applied.
Pesticide application is forbidden or allowed only at the least possible rate in certain
locations such as public parks and gardens, sports and recreation grounds, school
grounds and children's playgrounds and in the close vicinity of healthcare facilities.
The EU Drinking Water Directive (DWD, 1998) has set the maximum admissible