French health security agency ANSES has restricted the use of common weedkiller prosulfocarb. This is mainly due to a risk of skin reaction in children. It has threatened to ban it next June if producers cannot prove the new rules are effective. Used on various grains as well as root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots, prosulfocarb has become the second-largest weedkiller behind glyphosate in France.
As ANSES wasn’t able to exclude the exceeding of safety thresholds, mainly via skin exposure, for children less than 10 metres away from the crop during treatments, it therefore ordered that farmers cut by an average 40% the use of prosulfocarb per hectare and use nozzles on sprayers that reduce the drifting of the substance in the air by 90% from at least 66% previously.
Source: reuters.com
