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Six ambitious commitments clustered into three distinct focus areas, our industry’s pledges contribute to and align with the ambitions of the EU Green Deal. We are committed to making agriculture more resilient and sustainable, and are committed to driving a better, greener recovery.

The commitments outline how pesticides manufacturers will increase the resilience of the global food system and support the European Commission’s growth strategy, while delivering ‘More with Less’.

 

Three Focus Areas. Six Commitments.

 

innovation & investment

We will invest to accelerate farmers’ abilities to fight pests and diseases while protecting the environment

circular economy

We will address the plastics waste challenge

protecting people and ENvironment

We will provide access to training on new technologies

Sustainability is key

We want to make clear commitments to support the European Commission’s agenda, especially in the areas of innovation  for better ways to protect crops, circular economy, and training end-users to ensure that our products are used responsibly and only when, where and as much as necessary.

We recognise that the way food is produced is being challenged by a society that demands food production to become more sustainable. Society is calling on farmers to reduce inputs, such as fossil fuels, fertiliser and pesticides, in order to decrease the perceived impact on human health and the environment.

We agree sustainability matters! It matters to us, it matters in our operations, it matters in our food supply chain -from farm to fork.

Despite the wide agreement, how to best achieve sustainability is a complex debate. It’s a debate that all relevant parties have to engage in together, with an open mind, and take shared responsibility for finding solutions to produce enough affordable food more sustainably.

There are many factors to be considered in this complex equation. For example, how best to deliver sustainability while maintaining the safety, quality, affordability and competitiveness of the agricultural sector? We need to understand and balance all the trade-offs.

It is tempting to oversimplify the debate and focus on one single input or issue – but this will not result in solutions that work in the real world.

Our industry’s contribution

As an industry that supports sustainable food production, farmers and food security, our core business is to provide a variety of innovative farm solutions, be it chemical, biological, digital or through conventional as well as new breeding technologies. European agriculture is and will remain diverse, and our members are dedicated to delivering sustainable solutions.

We feel that increasing sustainability in farming should be focused on farm performance rather than on farm model. To meet consumer demands for sustainable food production while protecting and using less of the Earth’s limited natural resources, we must support all farm operations, whether big or small, whether conventional or organic. We believe that a holistic approach is needed to balance these elements that can lead to the preservation of biodiversity and mitigation of climate change whilst preserving farmers’ capacity to produce enough safe and healthy food in a sustainable manner. For European producers to continue to be able to provide society with healthy food, we need healthy plants. Pesticides – whether they are chemical or of natural origin – help protect crops, allowing consumers to continue to access and enjoy food that is pest-free and disease-free.

Monitoring and Reporting

The crop protection industry is committed to behaving and acting transparently, evidenced by our Industry Data Transparency Initiative (https://croplifeeurope.eu/commitments/industry-data-transparency/), launched in 2018.

To track and transparently share the progress the industry is making towards meeting the commitment goals, we have created a few mechanisms to review our progress.

CropLife Europe is developing  specific implementation plans to make sure each commitment undertaken is on track to being implemented.

Every year, data will be collected by CropLife Europe through company, national association and operator surveys and through information that would be publicly available. This process has started in 2022 after one full years of implementation.

Supporting Documents