Farmers have accused the RSPB of 'irresponsible scaremongering' in its repeated claims that pesticides used by British farmers are harming wildlife.

The industry representatives said that the conservation charity regularly used 'inflammatory language' in its public statements that damaged the on-the-ground practical working relationship between it and individual farmers.

They also said the RSPB's public position ignored the progress made by grass-roots farmers to optimise the balance between productive agriculture and nature conservation.

Farmer and conservationist Dr Alastair Leake said: “This is really disappointing from the RSPB. By invoking Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring from 60 years ago, and without any new academic analysis or review, this is little more than irresponsible scaremongering.

"I take particular offence at the RSPB’s suggestion that ‘we have sleepwalked into chemicals being the norm’, conveying the impression that farmers are blindly applying chemicals as the first solution when in fact the opposite is the truth.

“Our own practical experience of integrated crop management, including careful disease monitoring and precision application of pesticides on a ‘when needed’ basis, has shown that farming and nature conservation can go hand in hand," said Dr Leake. "Contrary to the RSPB’s assertion that farmland bird populations have halved, our farmland bird numbers have nearly doubled, crop yields have increased, and we continue to use pesticides across all the farmed land. Given the need to maintain a secure and affordable food supply, surely ours is an experience the RSPB should be sharing and advocating, rather than campaigning for arbitrary pesticide reduction targets.”

East Yorkshire mixed farmer Paul Temple said: “Our experience of integrated crop management, and particularly the adoption of no-till cropping systems, has brought a significant increase in farmland wildlife activity on and around the farm, from small mammals in the field to a greater diversity of farmland birds.

Read more: If you care about wildlife, condemn cats, not fieldsports

"The RSPB appears stuck in a time-warp of anti-pesticide propaganda – but I’d like to know where they stand on the issue of gene editing as a way to help farmers reduce their dependence on chemical means to protect their harvests.”

Northumberland farmer Matt Ridley added: “I’m not entirely sure why the RSPB has suddenly decided to launch this impromptu attack on farmers’ use of pesticides, apparently without any new evidence of harm. Their use of inflammatory language such as ‘harmful cocktail of chemicals’, and harking back to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as an evidence base, is clearly intended to sow fear and uncertainty about modern farming practices. By pandering to ill-informed prejudice in this way, the RSPB risks damaging its own credibility as a source of practical conservation advice among farmers and their advisers.”