The tide against blanket bans on the use of chemistry in pesticide control, may be on the turn in Europe.

The European Council recently voted to call for a complementary impact assessment on the effects that a 50% reduction in plant protection products would have on the industry.

That's in the face of the other arm of Brussels bureaucracy, the European Commission, not required to conduct such an assessment on the wider impact of its proposal to introduce legally binding requirements to cut pesticides by 50%.

Crucially, the council’s vote was backed by influential European farm lobbying organisation, Copa and Cogeca, which fully support the council's request and deeply regretted that no progress has been made in the last two years.

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On June 22, as part of the EU’s flagship 'Farm to Fork' strategy, the commission submitted to the European Parliament and to the council a proposal for a 'Regulation on the Sustainable Use' of plant protection products (SUR), amending Regulation (EU) 2021/2115. This introduced legally binding reduction targets of 50% for pesticide use and risk, while obliging Member States to set national reduction targets to achieve this target.

Since the publication of the 'Farm to Fork' strategy in May, 2020, Copa and Cogeca, together with leading organisations representative of the agri-food chain, had been asking for a comprehensive impact assessment of the cumulative effects that the implementation of such a strategy would have, especially on food security.

In this respect, Copa and Cogeca welcomed the recent decision adopted by the EU Council that the 'impact assessment accompanying the proposal does not consider the possible long-term impacts of the proposed Regulation on the food security in the EU' and 'the fact that the impact assessment was concluded before the war in Ukraine and the energy, fertilisers and food price crises, further validated those concerns'.

A spokesperson for the farming organisations said: “In light of the current circumstances, it is crucial that agricultural yields remain stable to produce enough high-quality and affordable products.

"For many years, society has been taking food security and affordability for granted. The global impacts of this have also become a concern in the EU as the latest data on annual inflation demonstrated.

“It is regrettable to see that after years of debate and despite the announcement of a study on the 'drivers of food security', we are still at the same point, acknowledging the same calls.”