A current exemption in UK law, commonly known as "grandfather rights", allows anyone born before December 31, 1964, to spray Plant Protection Products (PPPs) authorised for professional use on their own or their employer's land, without having a certificate of competence.
That all comes to an end on November 26, 2015 when everyone will have to be properly trained and possess a certificate.
In my ignorance as a young man, I never wore protective clothing, which was unheard of in those days. Driving a tractor with no cab, I sprayed with my shirt-sleeves rolled up on hot days!
Although I stopped spraying about ten years ago, I remember being alarmed by an EU report in 2005 that strengthened suspicion that pesticides can cause Parkinson's Disease.
The "Geoparkinson" study was published in the New Scientist and involved nearly 3000 people.
Headed by Anthony Seaton of Aberdeen University, the research found farmers were 43% more likely to develop Parkinson's because of their high exposure to pesticides.
There are other examples of the dangers of some pesticides with sheep dips an obvious one.
Dipping involves immersing sheep in a solution of pesticides that soak the fleece and get absorbed by the lanoline-rich grease next to the skin. They then protect the sheep from external parasites like lice, keds, ticks and sheep scab mites.
Dips also keep head-flies at bay and bluebottles, whose eggs hatch out into maggots that can literally eat a sheep alive.
Sadly, we never fully appreciated just how dangerous some of the pesticides were.
Aldrin, deildrin and DDT were all effective sheep dips that were so deadly they had to be withdrawn from use. DDT entered the food chain and caused infertility in birds of prey.
They were followed by organophosphate (OP) dips that had been developed from nerve gas used in the Second World War. Figures released in 1993 showed that between 1988 and 1992, 450 UK farmers and farm workers became ill after exposure to OP pesticides in sheep dip, and a number went on to suffer from serious, long-term, ill-health.
As a result of those alarming statistics, it became illegal from April 1995 to sell OP dips, except to holders of a Certificate of Competence. That certificate was granted to those who had passed an examination following an approved training course.
Recent amendments mean that the certificate is also needed to purchase synthetic pyrethroid sheep dips.
Dipping sheep nowadays involves wearing special protective clothing, gloves and face masks as opposed to the jeans and T-shirts I wore as a young man. No wonder some of us became seriously ill.
It's easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight and today's better understanding of how deadly some of the pesticides we use in farming are.
An EU ban on the use of neonicotinoids will come into effect on December 1 after experts said they posed an "acute risk to bee health".
They have been widely used in seed dressings for maize, oilseed rape and sunflowers to control pests such as virus-carrying aphids and cabbage stem flea beetle. Farmers will now have to find alternatives.
This year has been a good year for leather jackets, the larvae of Daddy Long Legs that nibble crop seedlings and grass, and can lead to crop failure.
When larvae numbers reach one million per hectare they can nibble as much as 2.5 tonnes of dry matter per hectare, and that's when farmers spray pesticides.
Sometimes, large flocks of rooks or starlings get there first and feast on infested fields, devouring most of the pests. It's that type of natural pest control that we need to encourage.
Some arable farmers leave wide margins of uncultivated land round the edge of their fields, or strips through the centre. These are known as beetle banks and are a haven for useful bugs like ladybirds that eat aphids.
Then there is the work being undertaken by Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire to develop genetically modified (GM), aphid-resistant wheat. The GM wheat produces a naturally occurring pheromone that not only repels aphids, but also attracts their natural enemies, such as ladybirds and wasps.
Currently a significant proportion of the UK wheat crop is sprayed with insecticides to control cereal aphids, which reduce yields by sucking sap from plants and transmitting barley yellow dwarf virus.
Unfortunately those sprays kill other beneficial species of insects as well, and consequently damage ecosystems – and then there is the question of whether they are really safe for humans to use?
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article