The susceptibility of the food chain to manmade chemicals has been highlighted once again by the Dow AgroSciences calamity over Aminopyralid.

The chemical, a herbicide popular with many farmers, is able to destroy weeds and nettles without destroying the crops or grass around them. However, the Aminopyralid, which is used to in the manufacture of many different Dow AgroSceinces products, has managed to outwit the brains that knew enough about its potential to warn against using it on food crops or on material that will be directly turned into compost.

However, despite these best intentions and precautions, Aminopyralid had slid into the food chain, and it is now being blamed for deformed vegetable crops and vacant plots and allotments up and down the country.

Scientists think that the contaminations originated in grass sprayed with the herbicide a year ago. Whilst materials themselves treated with the herbicide could not be sold as compost, nobody thought to concern themselves about the fact that Aminopyralid-treated silage, the cattle feed used over winter, might result in manure that was itself contaminated. That manure was then sold, to private gardens, to allotments and so on, and is now ruining harvests and – with those affected being told to not even think about planting in the same soil for at least twelve months – leaving allotments and vegetable patches forlorn and vacant.

And those twelve months, it is feared, could be just the beginning of a long road toward seeing our allotments and gardens fully Aminopyralid free.

The current suspension on Aminopyralid related products is not yet permanent, but even if it becomes so and farmers do not use the herbicides that they have already purchased then it is estimated that the problem of the contaminated manure will still be around for at least four more years.

The Royal Horticultural Society is conducting soil tests for people worried that they may have inadvertently contaminated their plot by using manure containing the echoes of Aminopyralid. However, a good test that any concerned person can do for free right now is to transplant a tomato plant into a 50% manure 50% compost mixture and then just wait and see for any signs, such as withered leaves and distorted shapes, that has been associated with the herbicide.

There has been a growing trend of people now turning toward growing their own food on allotments. The security of being able to check what, if any, pesticides or herbicides are on our food is often cited as a reason for this. So too s the growing concern over the effect that foods imported over long distances – often so that produce that is out of its growing season can still be stacked onto supermarket shelves – is having on the environment. The notion of food miles, and the acceptance of how they fit into expanding or reducing an individuals carbon footprint, means that more and more people find the prospect of growing their vegetables locally extremely appealing. Many councils have had to quarter the size of the allotments that they offer because demand is now so great. Let’s hope that the fear over Aminopyralid doesn’t affect this eco-friendly trend.

Matt Gammie is a writer for Ecoswitch