Managing Pesticides use and pollution more effectively.

A step we could take locally

Guildford Environmental Forum has launched a E-Petition on the Guildford Borough website to request the council works to phase out the use of pesticides on our pavements, streets, parks, playgrounds, and other open spaces in Guildford. The petition highlights that urban pesticide use is unnecessary, and also has health and pollution issues.

Many towns and cities around the world have banned them.   Locally, Waverley borough, Petersfield and Chichester have all committed to phase out pesticides whilst trialling alternatives.  They join, in the UK, over 60 councils implementing programs to phase out their use. Pesticides are banned in all green public spaces across the whole of France. Copenhagen and Seattle manage their public spaces without pesticides.

You can read the full petition on the Guildford Borough Website.

Robots to the Rescue in the countryside?

Ten of the US’s 20 largest vegetable growers, in California and Arizona, now use robot weeders on crops such as lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and strawberries.

Removing pests, such as aphids, thrips and lygus bugs, is a next step.  

Robots can also markedly reduce the use of fungicides and pesticides by applying them more precisely, using computer vision.

As well as concerns over farming chemicals, labour shortages also play a part in robots’ advance into farmland.  Expect to see robot harvesting.

The Guardian has a full article on this subject.