Yesterday’s joint hearing of the European Parliament’s ENVI and AGRI committees on the Food & Feed Safety Omnibus was dominated by claims that farmers need continued access to toxic pesticides to maintain yields and fight growing pesticide resistance. This argument turns the problem on its head: the intensive use of pesticides is itself driving pest resistance, creating a treadmill in which declining effectiveness is used to justify access to ever more pesticides. This “yield and substance loss” narrative locks European agriculture into a chemical model that is failing, while overlooking the impacts of pesticides on health and biodiversity.
The hearing itself was also deeply unbalanced. Most speakers represented organisations linked to pesticide-intensive agriculture, with Pr Dr Martina Vijver (Leiden University) the only independent scientist addressing environmental toxicity and pesticide impacts.
"No scientist with expertise on the impacts of pesticides on human health was invited. This is particularly concerning given the growing body of scientific evidence warning that this proposal will lower the level of protection for human health and the environment without delivering the promised simplification," said Salomé Roynel, Policy officer on Pesticide Risk Assessment at PAN Europe.
The claim that producers argue that they cannot afford to lose access to any substance was repeated during the debate, particularly for the apple, sugar beet and cereal productions. This argument is being used to justify the worrying proposals to allow unlimited authorisations and wider derogations to EU-banned substances. Yet, this narrative does not stand up to the evidence [1] and feeds directly into the pesticide treadmill: the more pesticides are used, the more pest populations develop resistance, which in turn is used to argue that farmers need access to more pesticides. This is a vicious cycle with no sustainable endpoint for EU farmers. Meanwhile, soil quality is declining, pollinators are disappearing, and crops are becoming more vulnerable to diseases [2].
"The answer to pesticide resistance is not unlimited access to pesticides, but breaking the pesticide treadmill through effective Integrated Pest Management, diversified and resilient farming systems and proper implementation of the rules already in place," stated Kristine De Schamphelaere, PAN Europe’s Policy Officer on Agriculture.
Advanced Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is able to ambitiously reduce pesticide use while maintaining robust or even increased yields. A 2026 systematic review covering more than 200 peer-reviewed studies reported that Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approaches were associated across multiple regions with 40–70% reductions in chemical pesticide use and 10–35% increases in crop yields.
"Integrated Pest Management has been mandatory under EU pesticide law since 2014. The problem is that Member States have failed to implement it effectively. This leaves many farmers without high-quality independent advice. Financial support flows to harmful practices instead of supporting resilient systems which reduce chemical inputs," added Kristine De Schamphelaere.
Misleading narrative of shrinking toolbox
Speakers also repeated the industry narrative that farmers have been left with an ever-shrinking toolbox of pesticides. In reality, the total number of active substances approved has not changed significantly since the enforcement of the Pesticide Regulation. There are currently 421 approved active substances according to the official EU pesticide database, while the total number of substances approved in 2011 before the enforcement of the Pesticide Regulation was 427 (source: Study supporting the REFIT evaluation of Reg. 1107/2009). While certain highly toxic substances have been banned, new substances have been approved, particularly biocontrol substances. However, farmers are not supported in using these safer alternatives [3].
A representative of the Czech national authorities pointed to capacity constraints and delays in pesticide assessments as a reason to support unlimited approval. However, they conveniently overlook a major source of these delays: incomplete industry dossiers, which force authorities to repeatedly request missing information and substantially prolong assessments.
"PAN Europe calls on MEPs to listen to the independent scientific evidence and reject the false choice between food production and protecting human health, biodiversity and the environment," concluded Salomé Roynel.
Contact:
- Salomé Roynel, Policy and Campaign Officer, salome [at] pan-europe.info +32 451 023133
- Dr Angeliki Lysimachou, Head of Science and Policy, angeliki [at] pan-europe.info +32 496 392930
Background Information on Integrated Pest Management (IPM):
- Available data and farmers throughout Europe show that ambitiously reducing the use of harmful pesticides is possible while maintaining stable or even increased yields and profitability. High-level expertise and advanced and specialised Integrated Pest Management measures are key.
- A review study indicates that IPM adoption reduces pesticide use by 40–70% while enhancing crop yields by 10–35% (Sabbir et al. (2026))
- Extensive research shows that monocultures are particularly vulnerable to pests
- A key 10-year study on Pesticide-Free systems in France showed that comparable or even superior yields are achieved for crops such as durum wheat, tricate and sugar beets (Ortiz-Vallejo et al., 2026)
- Integrating IPM principles can lead to up to 95% decreases in insecticide use, without affecting yields or even enhancing them through increased pollination services (Pecenka et al. (2021))
- The key challenge is that IPM, although mandatory through the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive since 2014, remains insufficiently implemented due to a lack of policy frameworks which ensure its enforcement, including a lack of independent, high-quality advisory services, and aligning CAP funding with pesticide reductions. Key large-scope research projects such as SPRINT underline that the challenges lie not primarily in the lack of solutions, but in the lack of their wide implementation, and the systemic lock-in mechanisms which maintain pesticide-intensive systems. The research project Agrowise highlighted ‘active prevention/prophylaxis’, which means that every crop management decision must contribute to preventing pest vulnerability, is the key way forward. There is broad scientific consensus that the pollution, climate and biodiversity crises are the main threats to food production.
Examples for Cereals
- For cereals, a meta-analysis revealed that for maize yields in low-input systems were not different from those in conventional systems; for wheat, yields in systems reducing pesticide use by 70% were lower than yields in conventional systems, but higher than yields in organic systems (Hossard et al, 2016);
- Another recent study shows that pesticide reductions in wheat fields are possible without sacrificing yields with more specific strategies such as switching to herbicide-free integrated weed management (Rueda-Ayala et al., 2026)
- Ancient varieties have been shown to reduce weed density by 17% (Federico et al., 2024)
- Non-mechanical weed management approaches, such as the stale seedbed and mulching, permanent soil cover, (crop) diversification and mechanical weeding, are found to offer sustainable alternatives to chemical herbicides (Kaur and Chinna, 2025; GOOD project; Maclaren et al. 2020; PAN Europe 2023, Weed Management: Alternatives to the use of glyphosate)
Examples for Sugar beets
- Pesticide-free farming has been shown to achieve comparable or even superior yields for crops such as sugar beets. In a recent French study, the yields for sugar beets were equivalent to that of conventionally farmed sugar beet in the region during the same seasons without increased production costs and decreased net farm income (Ortiz-Vallejo et al., 2026)
- A study dedicated to minimizing the yield gap between organic and conventional agriculture managed to close the gap and maintain key quantitative and qualitative parameters (root yield, sucrose content, and white sugar yield) for sugar beets by optimizing the fertilization method and choosing the correct variety for organic cultivation and the correct choice of variety in organic cultivation (Tyburski et al., 2024)
- Major European sugar producers announce significant production cuts for 2026 as record yields and elevated stocks create supply pressures
- Currently, heat waves and droughts due to climate deterioration and ecosystem deterioration are the main threats to the production of sugar beets and other crops.
- Moreover, as highlighted by the European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC), the use of pesticide seed pre-treatment, as was also ubiquitous in the sugar beet industry, is in breach with IPM principles mandatory through the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive (SUD), as it involves the 1) prophylactic use of pesticides instead of only using pesticides exceptionally, as a very last resort, and then using the pesticide with lowest risks (Principle 5: “the pesticides applied shall be as specific as possible for the target shall have the least side effects on human health, non-target organisms and the environment“), 2) only a small proportion of the pesticide enters the plant while most is released in the environment, 3) it makes monitoring of pests, threat assessment and evaluation of the non-chemical solutions redundant, while those are all required IPM principle (EASAC report 2023)
Examples for Apples
- Depending on the variety, up to 56% decreases in pesticide use are possible (Simon et al., 2011)
- In south-eastern France, data showed that apple orchards with low pesticide use overall are not suffering from higher pest or disease pressure (Poinas et al. 2026)
- Flower margins have been shown to lead to a significant reduction in the percentage of apple trees with fruit damage caused by rosy apple aphid, decreasing from 80% to 48% (Howard et al., 2024).
- Herbicide use can be avoided in, e.g. apple orchards through cover crops and integrated mechanical weeding (IPMWORKs, 2024). Integrated mowing and integrated tillage practices have been shown to perform as more sustainable alternatives to herbicides, without impairing tree growth, fruit yield, quality, or photosynthetic performance of trees. Additionally, they supported a substantial number of plant species, a higher percentage of ground coverage, and a considerable amount of biomass production, compared to herbicides. These are the pivotal goals in achieving orchard biodiversity, improving soil quality, and eventually leading towards long-term sustainability (Mia et al., 2020).
Notes:
[1] Examples for specific crops are given in the Background section.
[2] SPRINT 2025 - Transitioning away from pesticide dependency: EU policy recommendations, Transition pathways and policy recommendations
