Farmers have been given the green light to use a banned pesticide to protect sugar beet crops from a "significant" disease threat - provoking outrage from wildlife campaigners.
Chemicals called neonicotinoids were banned by the EU in 2019 due to fears over their impact on the health of bees and pollinators.
But in their absence, aphids carrying virus yellows infections have damaged the nation's sugar beet crops, many of which are grown in East Anglia.
In January, Defra approved an emergency temporary authorisation for a neonicotinoid seed treatment to be used in 2022 - but only if a trigger threshold was reached.
Now, the national Rothamsted Model disease forecast has predicted a 68.9pc incidence of virus yellows this year - far beyond the 19pc threshold. It means farmers can now use the treated seeds.
Wildlife campaigners claimed it was "disastrous for Norfolk's nature", while farmers said it was the only way to protect crops from a disease capable of devastating yields and damaging an industry which supplies more than 60pc of the UK's sugar.
Eliot Lyne, chief executive of Norfolk Wildlife Trust, said: “The news that the government have gone against their own scientific advisors in lifting the ban on the use of this bee-killing pesticide could be disastrous for Norfolk’s nature.
“Even minute traces of these toxic chemicals in crop pollen or wildflowers play havoc with bees’ ability to forage and navigate, with catastrophic consequences for the survival of their colony.
“Every effort should be made to find alternative methods of pest control that don’t result in this level of damage to our wildlife. In Norfolk, where sugar beet is a major part of farming, it is vital that we find ways for farming and wildlife to co-exist to their mutual benefit."
The authorisation requires all sugar beet growers to adhere to strict conditions including maximum seed rates, "careful and targeted use of herbicides" to minimise flowering weeds, and a 32-month restriction on growing flowering crops after sowing sugar beet.
Fenland beet grower Michael Sly, who is chairman of the National Farmers' Union's sugar board (NFU Sugar) said the independent, scientific disease forecast was a "clear indication" of a "significant threat from virus yellows disease this year".
He said: “The limited and controlled emergency authorisation granted by the government for growers to use the neonicotinoid seed treatment was to give them the tools to tackle this disease in this event of severe pest pressure, which we must remember caused crop losses of up to 80pc in 2020."
North Norfolk farm contractor Kit Papworth, also a member of the NFU Sugar board, added: "We have got to come up with a genetic solution to the virus and we need a better understanding of any other factor that we can use to reduce virus yellows, because it is devastating.
"It has been incredibly mild recently, so we are expecting the first flush of aphids to come into the crop in the middle of April.
"No farmer wants to be using these chemicals. But this crop is vital to Norfolk's economy and, until we find another solution, the only way we can deal with virus yellows at the moment is through this derogation."
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