Catalogue description Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: Infestation Control Divisions: Registered Files, Control of Animal and Bird Pests (LP/N) Series

From 1 September 1947 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries resumed all responsibility for infestation control, taking over the Infestation Division from the Ministry of Food as the Infestation Control Division. The division ran the Infestation Control Laboratory to carry out research, and this subsequently set up a Field Research Station at Worplesdon. In 1960 the division was absorbed by the National Agricultural Advisory Service, while the laboratory remained separate until 1970 when it was amalgamated with the Agricultural Research Council's Pest Infestation Laboratory to form the Pest Infestation Control Laboratory within a new Safety, Pesticides and Infestation Control Division. The responsibilities of the division included the administration of statutory controls, the distribution of grants, for the destruction of farm pests, the provision of advice on pest control and research into infestation of all kinds; it also administered the Safety Inspectorate. In 1974 the Environmental Pollution, Pesticides and Infestation Control Division was created, the safety aspects of the old division having passed to a new Agricultural Safety, Training and Wages Division. This arrangement lasted until 1984 when a separate Environmental Co-ordination Unit was established, and a new Pesticides and Infestation Control Division was created. In 1988 this was renamed the Pesticides Safety Division, though it still retained responsibility for both control of pesticides and crop protection. In 1993 the division was established as an executive agency of the Ministry, the Pesticides Safety Directorate.