Together with 78 environmental and farming organisations, Via Pontica Foundation signed a letter calling for strong farming pesticide statistics.
Plant protection products (PPPs) are pesticides used to protect crops. The EU framework aims to achieve sustainable use of PPPs by reducing risks and impacts on human health and environment and promoting integrated pest management. The Commission and Member States have taken action to promote the sustainable use of PPPs but there has been limited progress in measuring and reducing the associated risks.
Applying integrated pest management is compulsory for farmers, but not a requirement for receiving payments under the common agricultural policy and enforcement is weak. Available EU statistics and new risk indicators do not show how successful the policy has been in achieving a sustainable use of PPPs.
The revised Statistics on Agricultural Input and Output Regulation is in the final stages of the legislative process. While the European Parliament adopted a position that makes farm statistics fit for the future and meaningful to the public and for drinking water suppliers, Member State proposals fall far short of the Commission proposals and would make it impossible to measure progress towards the objectives set in the Farm to Fork Strategy.
NGOs and farmers’ associations make recommendations related to the verification of integrated pest management at farm level, the improvement of statistics on plant protection products and the development of better risk indicators. The same applies to biocides, fertilizers, animal health products and antibiotics in feed.
Better data will benefit everyone, from the general public, via farmers to drinking water suppliers. Let’s seize this opportunity!
Open letter from 79 organisations on the EU reform of pesticides statistics 25.02.2022