Safe and Sustainable use of Pesticides

Brussels (ots/PRNewswire) -

Solutions to protect farmers and public health

Over the next two days, a delegation of over 50 crop protection
industry and authority representatives together with farmers from
various European countries gather in Sinaia, Romania, for a
conference on the safe and sustainable use of pesticides.

Each year the conference is organised in one of the countries
implementing ECPA's European crop protection industry-initiated Safe
Use Initiative (SUI) - a program designed to provide farmers and
operators with an easy to use toolbox to successfully increase crop
protection user safety. This year the conference has been organised
by AIPROM (The Romanian Crop Protection Association) together with
the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture.

Participants will have the opportunity to learn and exchange
views and experiences on all aspects of applying plant protection
products in a safe and sustainable way. The conference also includes
a farm visit in the region, where participants will have the chance
to see the practical implementation of the SUI principles.

"SUI has enjoyed continued success over the past years. "In
Romania, the SUI training manual produced by the AIPROM was endorsed
with the logo of the Romanian Ministry of Agriculture and University
of Agronomy in Bucharest. This will increase SUI awareness and
hopefully have an enormous impact on farmer's uptake of the
recommendations" -said Yves Picquet, President of AIPROM.

In Slovakia, where the SUI program is also established, the
Slovakian Crop Protection's Association's video- guide comprising of
16 clips[1] on how to properly use pesticides has been endorsed by
the Slovakian Ministry of Agriculture and is now the official
video-manual from application techniques to proper Personal
Protective Equipment (PPE) and disposal of the containers.

The SUI recommendations have not only been appreciated by
European authorities. In France, during the 2012 International
Exhibition of Agriculture, farmers awarded UIPP (The French Crop
Protection Association) and partners for its risk awareness campaign
'un tel outil de travail, ca se protege'. "This campaign highlights
not only one of the key elements of basic Personal Protective
Equipment, i.e. the need of gloves when handling crop protection
products, but also risk management and prevention on farm. We are
very proud to have received this award and of being positively
recognized by the farming community" - commented Jean-Charles
Bocquet, the Director General of UIPP.

"In the ten years that our network has been running the Safe Use
Initiative project we have seen a great impact and uptake of the
recommendations. Today we are running SUI it in 12[2] countries and
the intention is to share the SUI principles with all Member States.
Farmer and operator health is key, and the easy to apply measures of
the SUI contribute to a vibrant sustainable agriculture sector" -
Friedhelm Schmider, Director General of the European Crop Protection
Association (ECPA) concluded.

To download the press release please follow the link: http://www.
ecpa.eu/news-item/human-health/06-11-2012/672/safe-and-sustainable-us
e-pesticides

The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) represents the
crop protection industry interests at European level. Its members
include all major companies and national associations across Europe.

For more general information:

http://www.ecpa.eu - http://www.hungry4change.eu -
facebook.com/cropprotection [http://www.facebook.com/cropprotection ]
- twitter.com/cropprotection [https://twitter.com/#!/cropprotection
]

1. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFCBF7D8DC03E8880

2. Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Bulgaria,
Poland, Lithuania, Cyprus, Slovakia and Romania

ots Originaltext: The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA)
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Contact: Anna Seretny, Communications Coordinator,
anna.seretny@ecpa.eu, Carmen Botez, Executive Manager,
carmen.botez@aiprom.ro, Switchboard : +32(0)2-663-1550