The use of pesticides is not decreasing
The use of pesticides on average in Europe did not decrease in recent years despite much debate on the sustainability of agriculture. In fact the negative impact is increasing, since many recently introduced synthetic pesticides can be used at low doses but they are more toxic.
Between 2011 and 2020 pesticide sales in the EU were almost stable, around 350,000 tonnes per year. In 2022 we see a slight decrease, but this is not a trend yet. The vast majority is used in the agricultural sector.
The European Commission has since 2011 published EU statistics on pesticide sales and the European Environment Agency's overview. The publication on pesticide use -which could start giving us information about different agricultural crops pesticide use- is still only in its making.
It is surprising that the EU is not able to collect and publish these statistics taken into account that EU regulation No 1107/2009 on the authorisation of plant protection products specifies in article 67 that each farmer needs to register crops and pesticide use and keep these records. Regulation No 183/2005 on feed hygiene states in its Annex I, section II, (2) (a) that “feed operators must, in particular, keep records on any use of plant protection products and biocides”.
The 2017 report from the European Commission concerning statistics on pesticides, acknowledges that "pesticides are a cause of pollution and have a direct effect especially on the state of biodiversity, water bodies, and soils. To ensure that these impacts are addressed appropriately, it is essential that policymakers are able to quantify the risk and the level of pesticide pollution. This would also aid the better implementation of existing environmental policy tools and serve to identify the remaining policy gaps for addressing the environmental pressures caused by pesticides. Currently, the policies concerned by the data needs are the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020, the common agricultural policy (CAP), the Water Framework Directive, and the Thematic Strategy on Soils."
In June 2022 the EU agreed to introduce a new instrument: Regulation on Agricultural Input and Output Statistics (SAIO). For pesticides, a transitional period of three years from 2025 has been agreed. Intermediate data collection will be for the reference year 2026. From base year 2028 onwards, data collection will be annual with annual publication from 2030 onwards. These annual data collections are conditional on the existence of electronic registers for professional users of pesticides.
