Boosting Integrated Production in Europe

PAN Europe has traditionally focused on getting harmful pesticides banned. This is still essential as governments’ pesticide evaluation lags product development by many years and Europe’s pesticide approval process has yet to tackle new concerns like endocrine disruption and increased sensitivity among children and foetuses. We have also seen that the latest generation of pesticides marketed by chemical companies are not appreciably safer for the environment or our health. So replacing old pesticides with new won’t do much to reduce risks. PAN Europe is therefore stressing that better agricultural practices and management are the best way of ensuring sustainability and high food quality.

Organic agricultural production is the best available practice, but we recognise that integrated production (IP) is often the most realistic short-term option for mainstream farmers. Prolonged lobbying by PAN-Europe and others has put IP on the political agenda as the alternative to high-input agriculture and IP has been adopted as mandatory for all European farmers from 2014 on. But this major policy success will only benefit the environment and human health if it is successfully implemented. Many players are busy ‘greenwashing’ pesticide-intensive practices by passing them off as IP. But IP is a holistic approach, a step towards fully sustainable agriculture, beginning with prevention, embracing biological control, and only allowing chemicals as a last resort if non-chemical methods fail.

Our main focus over the next four years is on making IP a success in Europe. PAN Europe and our members in EU countries are forming a major coalition of pro-change groups like IOBC, an international body promoting IP, and IBMA ,which promotes biological control, and proactive EU countries including Denmark. We are also identifying tools for change like rewarding the best-performing IP-farmers with Common Agricultural Policy money, realising an independent extension service, and minimum IP regulation.

PAN Europe sees the new policy as an opportunity to change current agricultural practices with their harmful environmental, climatic and health consequences into a multi-functional IP process providing top-quality food without chemical risks, and preserving biodiversity, the climate and the environment.

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