What is the salad industry doing about the use of pesticides?
Pesticide use has been substantially reduced on salad farms over the years and we are now using much more environmentally friendly products. The salad industry’s own controls are far more stringent than those laid down by legislation. Today many pesticides are target-specific (designed to tackle a specific problem or insect) with little or no environmental impact. Salad growers operate ‘Integrated Crop Management’ techniques in which a variety of control measures are used and sprays only applied where necessary in response to an identified problem. Crops are intensively monitored for signs of pests and disease before any decision is taken to spray. Crop traps (much like fly traps) are used to see how many pests are actually around. Many farms also use sophisticated weather stations to monitor conditions likely to produce high levels of disease. With this early warning system, appropriate action can be taken to avoid loss or damage to the crop, such as the protection of the salads with
