The industry body, GB Potatoes has confirmed that attempts to obtain an emergency approval for the continued use of mancozeb on potatoes crops has been unsuccessful.
Mancozeb is a fungicide that was primarily used by potato growers to prevent blight up until the end of the 2025 growing season, when it was withdrawn from use in the UK.
The decision to remove the approval for mancozeb usage was made by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which has been in communication recently with GB Potatoes and agronomists to explore the feasibility of an emergency authorisation (EA) application to continue the fungicide’s use for the 2026 growing season.
Mancozeb
GB Potatoes stated that an EA permitting the use of mancozeb “would have delivered a significant resistance management benefit at a time of increasing pressure from blight resistance.”
The CEO of GB Potatoes, Scott Walker explained: “With support from Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd (HCP), a small group of technical experts was convened to develop an application and to engage constructively with the HSE on what would be required for approval.
“Positive engagement with the authorisation holder, UPL, enabled productive pre-application discussions to take place, however it became clear that in order to meet HSE risk assessment requirements, any authorisation would be limited to a single application of mancozeb per crop.”
Walker noted that such a restriction would “not be commercially viable given the additional stewardship requirements that would need to be put in place,” and agronomists involved in the discussion advised that “a single application would deliver only very limited resistance management benefit.”
“As a result, and with great disappointment, the decision was taken not to proceed with an EA application for mancozeb,” he added.
GB Potatoes
According to Walker, “all possible avenues were explored” prior to the decision to not proceed with an emergency approval.
Following the discussions, the CEO of GB Potatoes expressed his gratitude for the “constructive liaison” with HSE on the issue.
He also thanked the time and effort invested by the team at HCP alongside agronomists Eric Anderson (Scottish Agronomy), Ruairidh Bain (Scotland’s Rural College), Graham Tomalin (VCS Potatoes) and David Cooke (James Hutton Institute).
