Five Least Sprayed Fruits in Conventional UK Agriculture

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Five Least Sprayed Fruits in Conventional UK Agriculture



UK agriculture - least sprayed fruits and berries

A few years ago we came across this article discussing which fruits and vegetables its worth it to pay a premium for, on the basis of pesticide use, and which you could get away with buying 'conventionally grown' in the USA.  Since then, I've been meaning to make a similar list for UK consumers, and here is installment number one!


I've compiled this list based on the 2012 Pesticide Usage Survey Reports from DEFRA, with some additional calculations to get rough values for the amount of pesticide used per hectare for each of the fruit/berries they listed.  So, if you're watching your pennies (which I always am) and need to buy some non-organic fruit, but still want to reduce your pesticide impact, these are the top five fruits to buy in the UK, from the UK!

  1. Plums
    • With about 0.604 kg of pesticides applied per hectare of plum orchard, these are the least sprayed fruit in conventional UK agriculture!
  2. Hybrid berries
    • Tayberries, loganberries, boysenberries and more are lumped together in this category, and have an average of 2.723 kg of pesticides applied per hectare.
  3. Blueberries
    • Not native to the UK, but well suited to its climate, blueberries are sprayed with an average of 3.659 kg per hectare here.
  4. Red and White Currants
    • The lesser used currants are also less sprayed - 3.671 kg per hectare.
  5. Blackcurrants
    • And last but not least, blackcurrants tend to be sprayed with 5.402 kg per hectare.
Averages per hectare give us a pretty decent indicator of which crops are less intensively sprayed, but have a look at the full table I've made, and consider which fruits still have a high proportion of unsprayed hectares.  This means that more than half of 'other culinary apples' aren't sprayed at all, and more than a quarter of apple ciders could be spray-free.

Next up: veg!


Fruit
Percent of Crop Treated
Kilos of pesticide applied per hectare (estimated)
Average number of treatments applied to each crop
Plums
72.3
0.604
10
Hybrid berries
76.5
2.723
5
Blueberries
68.1
3.659
8
Red and White currants
90.8
3.671
7
Blackcurrants
75.2
5.402
6
Gooseberries
98.1
6.082
6
Cherries
78.8
8.485
17
Blackberries
97.7
8.944
11
Raspberries
97.7
9.632
9
Cider apples and Perry pears
68.8
11.079
11
Other culinary apples
41.5
17.584
21
Vines (grapes)
92.3
20.485
15
Bramley apples
93.5
22.386
24
Cox apples
97.4
26.893
32
Other dessert apples
92.4
31.265
30
Pears
94.5
44.658
31
Strawberries
99.1
45.837
21

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