The latest EU pesticide reduction trends for 2024 show both significant progress and an important reality check. Compared with the 2015-2017 baseline, the use and risk of chemical pesticides is down by 56%, while the use of more hazardous pesticides has fallen by 23%. These substantial reductions reflect the efforts made by farmers, industry and policymakers across Europe over recent years.
At the same time, the latest figures show a slight increase in both indicators compared to 2023. This underlines an important point: progress is not always linear and achieving further reductions becomes increasingly challenging without ensuring farmers have effectives alternatives available.
The discussion therefore needs to move beyond targets alone and focus more on how further progress can be delivered. Farmers are being asked to produce more sustainably while remaining competitive in an increasingly challenging global environment. Meeting those expectations will depend on access to a broader toolbox of solutions, including biopesticides, NGTs, precision and digital technologies and other innovative approaches that can help reduce environmental impacts while maintaining productive and resilient agriculture.
Europe has a strong innovation pipeline. The challenge is ensuring that innovation reaches the farmers through a more predictable, proportionate and science-based regulatory framework that can keep pace with innovation.
The latest trends reinforce the importance of the Commission’s simplification and competitiveness agenda. If Europe wants to maintain momentum towards its sustainability objectives, it needs to create the conditions that allow innovative solutions to move more quickly from the laboratory to the field. Further progresscannot be delivered through reduction alone; it also requires faster access to new and better alternatives.
This is precisely why the Omnibus X discussions matter. Sustainability and competitiveness should not be treated as competing objectives. With the rightregulatory framework, innovation can help deliver both, supporting continues environmental progress while giving European farmers the tools they need to remain productive, resilient and competitive.