Question for Short Debate (Lords) on Food and Biological Security: Agricultural Fungicide - Nov 23

Asked by

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of how the United Kingdom’s current agricultural fungicide use will affect long-term food and biological security.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have joined this debate, to the Library for its excellent briefing and to the University of Manchester and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy among others who have prepared additional material on a subject that may at first appear niche and specialist. I hope that by the end of this debate it will be much more familiar to this Committee and far beyond, with its status lifted up in Defra’s and the Department of Health’s agenda. I must also thank my BSAC intern, Lorna Flintham, who has played a major part in my preparations for today.

The severity and widespread impact of fungal disease and fungicide use are often greatly overlooked. Annually more than 150 million severe cases of human fungal infections occur worldwide, resulting in about 1.7 million deaths a year. Many of those deaths are because the drugs that once worked to cure now work no longer because the fungi are resistant. That is not solely or even primarily because of medical use of drugs.

First, I shall make a quick distinction. Antifungals are human medicines used to treat fungal infections; fungicides are pesticides used to treat and prevent fungal plant infections, particularly in food crops. Some 4,000 tonnes of fungicide are sprayed on arable crops annually, accounting for 38% of pesticide use. They are not used without reason. The Irish potato famine, African wheat blight and the way our world coffee industry now sits in South America, and not where it originated in south Asia, are all the result of fungi defeating human efforts. The problem is what these fungicides are doing to our environment, food security and biosecurity.

First, there is their direct killing action. To date no policy document has shown an appreciation of the state of the UK’s soil microbiosphere and how it is being affected by biocides such as fungicides. We benefit hugely from mycorrhizal fungi and, indeed, many other fungi that break down materials that would otherwise literally cover our planet, but they are being eradicated by indiscriminate fungicide use in industrial agriculture in what is being termed a large microbial extinction event. Not only is this destroying environmental biodiversity but soils depleted of these microbes have lower crop yields. Some 80% of our food is dependent on plants. Lower crop yields will push food security and supermarket prices only one way.

Then there is cross-resistance. Most fungi exposed to fungicides in a crop field will die, but some will survive and become inherently resistant to the fungicide due to natural selection. The fungicide will also stop working in the field. The key issue is that the fungicides that fungi are resistant to are extremely similar chemically to the antifungals we rely on to treat patients in healthcare. By developing resistance to fungicides, these fungi also develop cross-resistance to clinical antifungals. More and more patients are coming forward with resistant fungal infections that healthcare providers simply cannot treat.

Fungal diseases affect more than 1 billion people every year. For those billion people, antifungals are indispensable tools in fighting infection. Development of treatments for fungal diseases in humans is intrinsically more challenging than agricultural fungicides due to the shared characteristics of human and fungal cells—that is, it is very challenging to eradicate a fungal cell without also damaging the host, and therefore the utmost care must be taken to produce and protect effective antifungal drugs.

A new emerging antifungal drug, Olorofim, has been effectively trialled in the treatment of aspergillosis, a highly debilitating fungal lung infection with a 30% to 50% death rate even when the strain is not resistant to medication, which 20% of cases are. Olorofim could make a real difference to the patient population, but there is a big problem: its efficacy is threatened by ipflufenoquin, a newly developed agricultural fungicide. These two drugs use the same mechanism of action to kill fungi, a big problem considering cross-resistance and the spread of resistance from our fields to our hospitals. As a government priority, the approval of ipflufenoquin for use in agriculture and other commercial sectors should be paused pending further investigation into the cross-resistance risk. I hope the Minister, to whom I have given prior notice of all the questions in this speech, will be able to directly respond on that issue.

We should not allow the approval of a pesticide that could undermine decades of antifungal drug development and risk the well-being—the life—of thousands of patients who could benefit from it. There is an opportunity here to truly benefit physically vulnerable people, which most of the affected patients are, who are absolutely reliant on this new breakthrough medication, which is a spin-out from University of Manchester research.

Further, the Government need to assess the feasibility of ring-fencing certain mechanisms of action for human antifungals. Ring-fencing could prevent the fungi in our environment being exposed to similar chemicals that we use to treat fungal disease in healthcare, ultimately safeguarding effective antifungals for the future. In addition, to promote the safe deployment of novel fungicides, regulators should introduce new criteria when approving antifungal compounds for commercial use. Are the Government looking at that?

Our infrastructure could greatly benefit from developing a risk management framework to evaluate the likelihood of cross-resistance emerging between new agricultural antifungals and existing clinical agents before they are approved for use. This is a genie that, once out of the bottle, cannot be put back in. In doing so, we could stop the inevitable inefficacy of antifungals in future and allow our UK antifungal innovation to remain competitive.

Unsurprisingly, it has to be noted that the climate emergency will only increase the pressure to act. The UK Food Security Report 2021 mentions fungal pathogens only three times in 322 pages, although it notes that:

“Warmer temperatures can also encourage fungal diseases such as potato blight”,

backing up what the science has told us in multiple directions—that the effect of the climate emergency on plant diseases, of which 80% are fungi-based, will lower crop yields. In humans, fungi such as the valley fever pathogen are known to thrive in warmer soils. More frequent severe storms, floods and hurricanes are also increasingly dispersing harmful fungi across hundreds of miles to human hosts, potentially causing infection outbreaks through what were previously rare diseases. Here in Parliament, we need to seriously consider how fungicide use will fit into the growing pressure from fungal diseases in a warming world.

I turn to broader issues. Increasing our fungicide use in agriculture is not the answer; in fact, we clearly have to massively decrease it. Innovation should not automatically mean new synthetic chemicals  Yes, we need to make further research funds available to replenish our antifungals and fungicides but, much more, we need to explore innovative agricultural practices that reduce our reliance on fungicides. The Minister has frequently expressed agreement with me about the need for agro-ecological practices. To put it another way, as does the Exeter researcher Jamie Lorimer, we need to use life to manage life—using mechanisms that have been around for hundreds of millions of years.

Our approach to agriculture is outdated and comes from a time when we were not aware of the environmental and human risks of pesticide use. In that vein, I strongly urge His Majesty’s Government to share their plans and ask the Minister when we will see the updated UK national action plan for the sustainable use of pesticides.

I acknowledge to the Government that striking the balance between prioritising our food security and safeguarding our clinical treatments is an impossible challenge, but it is an essential one that we have to meet as best we possibly can. Managing fungal crop disease has always been essential to our ability to feed the population, but we cannot afford a haphazard, piecemeal approach that will hurt our public health and our NHS. We need integrated, “one health” considerations of the impact of the climate emergency and responsible fungicide legislation.

Mitigating these risks will require the Government to work collaboratively with cross-sector stakeholders: clinicians, industry representatives from agritech and pharma and third-sector organisations in both those spaces, and farmers. Globally, as we are reminded by reports of a new disease outbreak in China, no one is safe until everyone is safe.
Are the Government working with the Quadripartite, the organisation that brings together the WHO, the FAO, the UNEP and the WOAH, to look at the specific antifungal and fungicide issues I have outlined? Are they seeking mechanisms to reserve particular actions of chemicals for human drug use? Urgently, we need to delay the approval of ipflufenoquin in the UK pending further investigation and to leverage international mechanisms to address the approval of this chemical worldwide. Ultimately, no one is safe until everyone is safe. I look forward to the debate and hope for urgent consideration of the issues raised.

1.11pm
Baroness Walmsley (LD)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for introducing this important but niche subject. As a botanist, I have always felt that fungi are often underestimated and largely ignored, yet they play a major role in the natural environment, in particular in the soil ecosystem, where they break down organic matter and make it available to plant roots through the miles of mycelium under our feet. Without the fungi in a healthy soil, our crops would fail and our food security would be affected. However, as we heard from the noble Baroness, some fungi are regarded as pests that infect food crops and reduce the harvest, or even make the food inedible. The challenge is to control the one without damaging the other or, indeed, insect pollinators and our wild bird population.

The major tool for the challenge of these fungal pests is fungicides, controlled by our plant protection products—PPP—regime, now independent since the UK left the European Union. I am glad to say that it is true that the use of fungicides has fallen in recent years, partly because of more sensible and economical use of fungicides—what farmer does not want to save money on unnecessary spraying?—and partly through the development of resistant varieties of crops, in particular wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

What support are the Government providing for research to develop disease-resistant varieties of crops? What damage has been done to such projects since the Government’s protracted negotiation about joining the EU Horizon scheme, from which UK scientific research benefited so much for so many years?

I do not deny that there is a role for minimal pesticide use if we are to feed our country as much as possible from our own limited land area, on which there is so much pressure, and I look forward to the Government’s long-awaited land use strategy. However, there are other ways of skinning the cat, and sustainable farming methods can be just as productive and better for our damaged biodiversity. Practices that protect soil health and pollinators will give just as much benefit as widespread use of pesticides of all kinds, if not more, and still give farmers a living.

However, the briefing we received from CropLife UK, which made the case for the controlled and legal use of pesticides, noted that:

“The UK has one of the most rigorous regulatory regimes for PPPs in the world. Active substances and products must be safe for the environment and pose no unacceptable risks to human health”.

I underline that last phrase.
This brings us to the point of the noble Baroness’s debate today, for she and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, which also briefed us, believe that we are in danger of just such a risk unless action is taken. The same fungi that affect crops can also affect humans, as she said, and are very dangerous to the most vulnerable patients. Nature is endlessly inventive, and clever fungi have developed resistance to the fungicides that farmers commonly use. But the researchers in bioscience are also very clever, and have developed a very effective treatment for humans. There is also a new treatment, developed by the University of Manchester, which is effective against the new antimicrobial-resistant strains of fungi when they affect humans.

So far, so good. However, a new product approved by the FDA in the US has now been developed for agricultural use and is effective against the antimicrobial-resistant strains of Aspergillus in the field—I will not try to pronounce the name, as the noble Baroness has already done so. You can therefore see the attraction to farmers. Yet there is a risk to human health because it uses, as the noble Baroness said, the same molecular mechanism as the effective human treatment. Scientists believe that, if it came into general use, it would both stimulate the development of more resistant strains of fungus in the field and jeopardise the effectiveness of the new treatment currently undergoing clinal trials.

I therefore support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, in asking for a pause and a risk assessment before this product is licensed for use in the UK. If we do not do this, we will be constantly chasing our tails as nature develops resistance to our chemicals  and we then have to develop more and more chemicals to protect humans. Nature will always win in the end. That is why I support the further implementation of low-pesticide agricultural practices to protect our soils and reduce environmental selective pressure, which undoubtedly leads to more resistant strains emerging. Can the Minister therefore outline the environmental land management payments that are relevant to this sort of agricultural practice? Can he also say how successful uptake has been among farmers of all sizes, including tenant farmers?

1.17pm
Baroness Hayman of Ullock (Lab)

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett of Manor Castle, for bringing us this debate today. We have heard a lot about how fungicide infections have an impact on humans—it is a huge global problem—and about the environmental impact of the use of fungicides.

The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about the importance of protecting pollinators and soil, and the damage that can happen if we are not careful. Fungicides can affect the gut microbial fauna of invertebrates, and honey bees are a classic example of that. But we do not have enough information about the impact on other pollinators, so it would be interesting to know whether the Government plan to do any more research in that area. We have also heard about the difficulties of fungicide resistance and the resulting impact on infection in humans. I am sure that the Minister is very aware of the issues around run-off into freshwater environments; we have had many debates about that, and fungicides and pesticides are part of that issue.

To think further about how pesticides affect people indirectly through the environment, farmers are not required by law to notify people when spraying is taking place. We know that this is best practice, and voluntary initiatives encourage it. Most farmers do it, but we also know that the health impacts from dietary exposures to pesticides are unclear. Again, it would be useful to know what the Government do to check how many farmers do not comply with that, given that it could have an impact on health. The European Environment Agency has looked at links between human exposure to chemical pesticides and increased risk of various chronic illnesses. I know that it comes more under health than Defra, but this is an important thing to be aware of.

The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, went into some detail about the concerns that have been raised around serious fungal infections in humans—the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about that—and the impact of potentially undermining the new research and new treatments if something similar is then introduced into agriculture. So it is important that the Government assess the feasibility of ring-fencing certain mechanisms so that fungi in the field are not exposed to the same types of chemicals that are used clinically—the noble Baroness put that point across extremely well.

I also support the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on pausing the approval of ipflufenoquin for use in UK agriculture until more research has been done on the implications for cross-resistance, for example. The noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, also talked about the importance of developing a risk management framework to evaluate the likelihood of cross-resistance, which again we would support—it needs to happen before antifungals are approved for use—as well as the importance of further research funds so that we know we have safe, effective treatments going forward for both humans and crops.

I want to ask the Minister about the UK National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Pesticides. We know that its review is a statutory requirement and that publication was scheduled for spring last year, but we have not had an update since December 2021. The Government have also said that the revised plan would have due regard to the environmental principles policy statement that was published following the Environment Act 2021.

In September the Government said that the UK was committed, as a party to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, to meet a global target to

“reduce the overall risks from pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals by at least half by 2030, as agreed at COP15”,

and added that the Government would need to

“update and submit its National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans by the 16th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Biodiversity”,

which is due to be held next year. It would be very helpful if the Minister could provide an update on what is happening in these areas.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about the decreased environmental impact and the fact that usage is coming down. I want to ask the Minister about integrated pest management—I thank CropLife UK for its briefing on this. CropLife has asked for the expansion of the adoption of the IPM—the integrated pest management strategy—and apparently it is expected in the upcoming national action plan. Again, it would be very useful if the Minister was able to update us on that.
1.23pm
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Benyon) (Con)

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing this debate and welcome the opportunity to respond on the assessment of how the UK’s current agricultural fungicide use will affect long-term food and biological security. I thank her not only for the way in which she opened the debate but for giving notice of the very serious questions that she put; I will endeavour to answer them and other questions that have been put in this debate.

The noble Baroness is entirely right: fungal diseases can cause serious damage to crops and other plants. Potato blight, which was mentioned, and Dutch elm disease are well-known examples but fungal infections can affect all crops. Fungi can also leave poisonous chemicals  such as mycotoxins, in infected plants, with consequent risks to people.

Most of the food we eat here in the UK is produced here in the UK. While the diversity of our food supply chain, where domestic production is combined with imports through stable trade routes, ensures its resilience, we cannot underestimate the importance of British farming in delivering food security in the UK. A key component of this is the management of pests, weeds and diseases. Careful selection of crop varieties and attention to good husbandry will help to limit fungal infection of crops. However, fungicides will be essential in some situations to prevent or control infection.

I come to some of the points raised by the noble Baroness. She asked what was being done to address the damage done to the microbiosphere and soil fungi—a point also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We know that agricultural fungicides can affect the structure of soil microbial communities, including beneficial soil fungi, of which there are many. We promote the use of integrated pest management approaches, including the use of cover crops, which are known to increase soil microbial diversity. Through our environmental land management schemes, we are encouraging, incentivising and supporting farmers to develop integrated pest management into how they farm, and the use of green cover crops, which is absolutely vital. I will perhaps come on to say a little more about that.

I come to the noble Baroness’s specific point about ipflufenoquin and whether its use in agricultural or other commercial sectors is right, pending further investigation into the risk of cross-resistance emerging. I am of the belief—and I am happy to discuss this further with the noble Baroness—that this is not an active substance that is currently approved in the UK, or one that the HSE, which regulates this area, has received an application to approve. As and when it does, there is a very proper debate that the noble Baroness would be right in raising.

The noble Baroness also asked what work the Government were doing to reserve certain modes of action of antifungals for human medicine only, and about a risk management framework against cross-resistance development. The scope of the current regulatory regime extends only to considering resistance in the target pest, weed or disease, and therefore does not consider human pathogens. This is consistent with internationally accepted standards and guidance. However, we recognise the importance of understanding the broader impacts of resistance beyond single species. The new antimicrobial resistance national action plan, due to be published in 2024, will include a focus on plant health and will have commitments focused on better stewardship of antimicrobials in plants, as well as a call for a search on drivers of AMR in plants and the transmission routes of AMR through plants—directly responding to the very good point that the noble Baroness made—and on our greater understanding of the impacts of these fungicides in the wider contexts of the food we eat and the environment we seek to protect.

As with all pesticides authorised for use in Great Britain, fungicides can be placed on the market only after a thorough scientific risk assessment. That assessment and subsequent reviews consider risks to the environment and human health, as well as the efficacy of the fungicide. The assessment of efficacy is important in this context. To avoid excessive use, the regulator, the Health and Safety Executive, assesses the minimum dose of the active substance—that is the chemical that delivers the required effect—needed in the product. This will ensure that the product is sufficiently effective without applying more of it than is required, minimising the potential for resistance to develop. However, any pesticide must be used with care. We know that overuse of pesticides can have an impact on the natural environment but it can also lead to resistance, which costs farmers more and may cause further downstream impacts, including to human health, as the noble Baroness said.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, asked about compliance. There is a very strict enforcement process, governed mainly by the Environment Agency, on the release of chemicals into the environment, particularly into watercourses. I do not have a figure for the number of cases that we have dealt with in recent years, but it is certainly available and I am very happy to provide it to the House.

Managing antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, effectively is essential for biological security in the UK and globally. Our understanding of fungicide resistance as an emerging AMR threat is still growing. We are currently reviewing evidence of the link between fungicide resistance in crops and transition to animals, including humans. This work will fit into the broader context of the action this Government are taking on AMR, which encompasses resistance to infections caused by fungi, bacteria and other micro-organisms. In 2019 we published our 20-year vision to contain and control AMR by 2040. This strategic vision is supported by our current five-year AMR national action plan, running from 2019 to 2024, and a new action plan due to be published next year.

We have already made significant progress in combating AMR in agriculture. Our work on antibiotic resistance in animal agriculture has led to a 59% reduction in the use of antibiotic medicines in farmed animals between 2014 and 2022. It is a remarkable story, and there have been some staggering increases of way more than that. Alarmingly, last year there was a big spike of antibiotic use in salmon farming. We hope to see that continue to improve, but there are serious issues to answer there. Within this new plan, we seek to promote research into better understanding the transmission of antifungal resistance through the environment to humans and to encourage responsible antimicrobial use in crops by providing evidence-based guidance.

The noble Baroness asked what the Government are doing with the Quadripartite on these issues. Antifungal resistance is a subset of AMR and is taken into consideration in the UK and in global AMR strategies. I work with Ministers in other departments to make sure that the UK is absolutely at the forefront of these issues through our “one health” agenda. The UK is a leading member of the Quadripartite multi-stakeholder partnership platform on AMR, which is driving action on AMR across the sectors, including Governments, researchers, civil society organisations and funders.

A question was put about the national action plan on pesticides. We appreciate that noble Lords are concerned that the publication of the NAP has been delayed, and we will publish it shortly. We have not waited for its publication to move forward with work supporting sustainable pest management. Farmers can now sign up to new paid integrated pest management actions within the sustainable farming incentive scheme. We are really pleased with the level of interest in the new scheme, which includes integrated pest management, and we have had more people showing interest in the first month after the new actions were announced than we had in five months under the previous one. We are starting to see real buy-in to this. Feeding into that is a near doubling of the number of farmers in Countryside Stewardship, and our landscape recovery schemes are also taking place. This is moving into a good place, but there is much more work to be done.

We are also supporting research into pest management and IPM through the £270 million farming innovation programme, through which farmers and growers in England, with industry partners, can apply for funding to develop innovative methods and technologies to boost sustainable productivity in agriculture and horticulture. This work will help farmers access the most effective pest management tools available and ensure that we understand the changing trends in pest threats across the UK. It is really important that we see this grow and that research can be scaled here in the UK. Too often in the past we have seen really good ideas brought forward by unbelievably talented universities that have to go abroad to be scaled up. We want to see this investment here and this great new green tech boom exporting good practice and innovations across the world. We have not waited for the new AMR plan to be published to take action on pesticide resistance, as I said. This Government are already supporting this in a variety of different ways.

This holistic approach carefully considers all available plant protection methods to ensure that pesticides are used only where they are needed. Alternative methods of prevention and control are encouraged, and decision-making tools and monitoring systems are used to track pests and understand when intervention is required. IPM therefore helps to minimise chemical intervention and diversify the techniques used for pest and disease management, which reduces input costs for farmers and growers. We are all pulling in the same direction here: it absolutely makes sense for a farmer to use fewer pesticides, fungicides, sprays and other interventions if they possible can. The added advantage is that, over time, that will increase their resilience and reduce the likelihood of resistance. This year we announced new IPM actions as part of the SFI. That is working holistically, seeing better results for food security, the environment and, we hope, our health.

Around 10 years ago, when people started talking about precision farming, it seemed to be the future. Now, precision farming seems a little analogue in a digital age, when we are starting to see technologies coming through that can treat individual plants using data that is in the tractor cab and available through satellite imaging and other tools. We are starting to see benefits to both agriculture and horticulture, which could mean a dramatic diminution in the amount of spray we use.

Finally, in 2021 this Government established a £19.2 million research programme called Pathogen Surveillance in Agriculture, Food and the Environment, PATH-SAFE. This programme, led by the Food Standards Agency, will bolster our understanding of AMR in the environment, including the importance of different sources and potential transmission routes. We expect the final details of this project to be published next year.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)

Before the Minister concludes, I want to raise a couple of points that he has not covered. One thing that he alluded to is how this crosses over with the Department of Health. I have an easy question for him: will he please refer this debate to that department and make sure that it is aware of it? On the new AMR action plan, can the Minister ask the department whether we can have a meeting to talk about the specific issue of antifungals and make sure that it gets the attention it deserves?

I have two other questions that have not been covered. The Minister said that he does not know of any attempt to get ipflufenoquin registered here. Of course, if it is being used in the US, it is creating resistance that will be imported here, which is where the issue of trade deals will come in. Can the Minister make sure that this is drawn to the attention of our trade negotiators?

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked about the numbers in terms of the SFI and integrated pest management. I understand that the Minister may not be able to answer now, but can he update us in a letter on the numbers of people applying to that?
Lord Benyon (Con)

I thank the noble Baroness for those points. I sit on a cross-ministerial committee with Health Ministers, and we are absolutely making the point that antimicrobial resistance is a matter not just for health but for Defra, and that we have an international role in different fora, such as the WHO, UNEP and others. We certainly take this extremely seriously. I will write to the noble Baroness with more details about when the AMR action plan comes out. I am very happy to connect her with the officials who will draw that up.

On trade deals, we have a write-round process in government and I can assure her that we take this really seriously. There is perhaps enough interest in the House on SFI that I could write and put a letter in the Library with up-to-date figures on the uptake of ELMS.

I am conscious of time, so I will conclude by saying that, as with many areas of environmental and health policy, there are connections and tensions between two priorities. We are bringing together expertise from across government to ensure that our policy, regulation and strategy strike the right balance, so that pests, weeds and diseases can be managed effectively, while reducing the impacts of resistance across society, our environment, the food we eat and our reliance on it.

The specific actions being taken on resistance through the AMR national action plan and pesticide-specific policies and regulation are only one component in this broader picture. The recently published UK Biological Security Strategy and next year’s edition of the UK Food Security Report—a requirement of the Agriculture Act—showcase the UK Government’s focus on these key areas and how we will ensure that this country remains ready to handle these challenges.