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Dear John

Wow, what a week! We have been especially busy lately and we thought it would be a good time to update you on a big story and give you an opportunity to take action on a couple of our current campaigns.

As part of our work at national level to change UK pesticide policy we published an article earlier this week which revealed that many common UK food items contain PFAS pesticides, including grapes, cherries, spinach and tomatoes. Strawberries were found to be the worst offenders, with 95% of the 120 samples tested by the government in 2022 containing these chemicals.

PFAS have been branded as ‘forever chemicals’ because of their ability to persist in the environment and accumulate in the blood, bones and tissue of living organisms, including humans.

You may have already seen that the article received great coverage and was featured in The Times, The Independent, The Daily Mail, The Sun and many others, including front page of The Metro in print. We were also live on Good Morning Britain, ITV and Channel 5 news, as well as various radio stations. It’s so rewarding to know that thousands more people are being reached and made aware of this issue.  

As part of our work at local level and as a member (and host) of the Pesticide Collaboration we are backing their new campaign calling for a national ban on pesticides in urban spaces. We have big plans this year, but the first step is getting councillors across the country to add their signature to a letter being sent to The Rt Hon Steve Barclay MP in his role of Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

As spraying commences in urban spaces across the country, this is an excellent opportunity to ask your councillors to get involved. We have set up a quick and easy online route for you to do this and it just takes a minute.

And finally, as part of our work tackling pesticides in supermarket supply chains, we have once again launched our campaign for the biggest UK supermarkets with gardening ranges to take pesticide products off their shelves. Thanks to public pressure over the last few years, both the Co-op and Waitrose have taken action and with a number of others reconsidering their sale of these products an email from you now could have real impact.

You can also read a story about the human and environmental cost of strawberries, download the inspirational ‘Stories from the Ground’ booklet featuring the cotton farmers we work with in Benin, and watch a short video from the Director of PAN Ethiopia celebrating ten years of work with the fantastic cotton-farming community there (listen to the birds in the background too!).

And if you feel able to support our work with a donation we would greatly appreciate it.

In solidarity,

the team at PAN UK