A Sussex environmental campaigner has branded Government plans to introduce safety zones around fields being sprayed with pesticides as weak.

Georgina Downs said the proposal for no-spray buffer zones was slanted towards there being no risk to human health from pesticides sprayed on farmland near homes.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) did not specify in a consultation on the proposal launched on Monday what size the zones should be.

Ms Downs, who lives near Chichester, started her one-woman campaign for tougher rules because of medical problems she believes were caused by agricultural chemicals.

She wants safety zones near homes, schools, workplaces and other areas of habitation.

She said: "A small buffer zone is not going to be adequate or in any way acceptable to protect public health from the high level of risk in the spraying of agricultural chemicals."

Ms Downs welcomed a second preliminary consultation by Defra on access to information about when spraying would take place and what pesticides were going to be used.

She said: "Everyone should have a right to know what chemicals they are exposed to ."

Lewes MP Norman Baker, the Lib Dem's front bench environment spokesman, said there was concern about the effects of pesticides on health.

He said it was important people were warned when spraying was to take place and there were adequate buffer zones.

Defra said it welcomed comments. Both consultations last for three months.

More than 25,000 tonnes of pesticides are sprayed on British farmland every year.