16 organisations across Europe including environmental and health associations call on the national governments represented in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF committee) to vote in favour of the adoption of this Implementing Regulation (version submitted to the public consultation) at the next meeting scheduled in December 2022.
The digitalisation of the pesticides use records is a key piece of the puzzle to enable long overdue meaningful pesticide use statistics across the EU. Thanks to the reform of Statistics on Agriculture Input and Output (SAIO), which was approved by the European Parliament on 4 October 2022, pesticide use data will not be collected any longer every five years and on different crops in different EU countries. Until 2028, the SAIO reform foresees that they will be collected every two years on a common selection of crops, and from 2028, every year. However, this annual collection will only happen if, meanwhile, the national governments approve this Implementing Regulation requiring professional users of plant protection products to keep records on the use of such products in electronic format (Article 14(2) of SAIO).
These are a few reasons why this Implementing Act, ensuring the EU-wide digitalisation of the records, is very welcome and long overdue.
