The Association of Peasant (Farmer) Farms and Agricultural Cooperatives of Russia receives requests from regional ACCOR about the excessive requirement for the distance to settlements and residential buildings when treating crops with pesticides and agrochemicals.
First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Agrarian Issues, President of ACCOR V.N. Plotnikov sent a letter to the head of the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance S.A. Dankvert with a request to consider the issue of changing the boundaries of sanitary gaps in the use of pesticides in the direction of their reduction.
So, according to GOST R59056-2020 of 04/01/2021 and the Decree of the Chief Sanitary Doctor of the Russian Federation of 01/28/2021 N 3 (as amended on 02/14/2022), with the ground method of treatment with pesticides and agrochemicals, the distance from settlements, sources of household and drinking and cultural and domestic water use, places of recreation for the population and places for manual work on the care of crops should be at least 300 meters. Reducing the indicated distances to 50 meters is allowed only when carrying out treatments in mountainous and foothill areas in personal subsidiary plots using backpack sprayers.
However, the implementation of the above GOSTs and Resolutions for most small farms is impossible due to objective reasons, such as: the traditional farm lifestyle and farming, in which peasant farm lands begin immediately at the farmer’s house; small-scale agricultural lands of small farms, whose lands border on the settlement.
World lawmaking experience shows that when pesticides are used, the distance to settlements and residential buildings does not exceed 5 meters. This, among other things, is due to the fact that at present the processing of plants is carried out by more advanced technical means. In addition, pesticides are divided into hazard classes and environmental impact. This is objective and confirmed information, which should be taken into account when developing the relevant GOSTs.
