As UN leaders call for a 70% increase in agricultural productivity by 2050 to cope with a growing world population, the EU Council of Ministers yesterday adopted a new Pesticide Authorisation Regulation which will seriously undermine European farmers’ ability to respond.

This new legislation will switch the approval of pesticides away from the current approach, based on assessment of risk, to the use of hazard-based ‘cut-off’ criteria. It is predicted that some 15-20% of currently approved crop protection products will be lost as a result.

Press release