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Improving pesticide-use data for the EU

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 5, page 1560 (2021)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Access to pesticide-use data is essential to accurately evaluate the adverse effects of pesticides on human and ecosystem health. In Europe, applicators are usually required to record the location and date of pesticide applications1. A subset of these data is periodically sampled to produce heavily aggregated estimates of pesticide use, with spatial data reported to a national level. By contrast, in California all the data from applicators is reported in an openly accessible and highly temporally and spatially granular database2. The Californian approach has enabled the location of endangered species exposed to spray drift3, the monitoring of surface water pollution4, the determination of honeybee pesticide exposure5 and the identification of health effects from residential exposures to pesticides6. Such analyses are not possible within the European Union.

The European Commission has proposed to reform the EU legal framework of statistics on agricultural input and output in February 20217. This reform was examined by rapporteurs from the European parliament and awaits a decision from the EU Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development. A main objective of this reform is to improve the high-quality European agricultural statistics “for policymakers, businesses and the general public to be able to take appropriate evidence-based decisions”. As such, we recommend changes so that pesticide-use data can be incorporated into EU environmental and health risk assessments. The spatial scale at which data are reported must enable fine-scale granular analyses, ideally at the level of individual fields. Reporting should include products applied, adjuvants, active ingredients (including their concentration), rate and timing of application, target crop variety, and should be reported per application. Digital record submission could be used to minimize the workload on farmers, with additional options (for example, postal return) made available to maximize compliance. Since most farmers are already required to record these data, this should impose little additional burden. Data should be reported yearly with a short delay and should be standardized across the bloc. These data should be published as downloadable whole datasets and have a user-friendly online interface. However, with an increase in transparency comes an associated cost to privacy. Explicit reporting of where controversial substances are used could open up pesticide users to targeted harassment.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Gene Expression and Therapy Group, King’s College London, Faculty of Life Sciences & Medicine, Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Guy’s Hospital, London, UK

    Robin Mesnage & Michael N. Antoniou

  2. Centre for Ecology, Evolution & Behaviour, Department of Biological Sciences, School of Life Sciences and the Environment, Royal Holloway University of London, Egham, UK

    Edward A. Straw, Mark J. F. Brown & Ellouise Leadbeater

  3. Heartland Health Research Alliance, Port Orchard, WA, USA

    Charles Benbrook

  4. ANSES, Sophia Antipolis Laboratory, Unit of Honey Bee Pathology, Sophia Antipolis, France

    Marie-Pierre Chauzat

  5. Agricultural Economics and Policy Group, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Robert Finger

  6. School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

    Dave Goulson

  7. BC3 — Basque Centre for Climate Change, Scientific Campus of the University of Basque Country, Leioa, Spain

    Ana López-Ballesteros

  8. Centre D’Études Biologiques de Chizé, UMR 7372, CNRS & La Rochelle Université, Villiers-en-bois, France

    Niklas Möhring

  9. Institute of Bee Health, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Peter Neumann

  10. School of Agriculture and Food Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Edward A. Straw, Dara Stanley & Linzi J. Thompson

  11. Department of Botany, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Jane C. Stout & Elena Zioga

  12. Department of Ecoscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Christopher J. Topping

  13. School of Chemical Sciences, Glasnevin Campus, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Blánaid White

  14. Institute of Zoology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Johann G. Zaller

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  1. Robin Mesnage
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  2. Edward A. Straw
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Correspondence to Robin Mesnage or Edward A. Straw.

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Competing interests

C.B. has participated in pesticide litigation in the US, which entailed analysis of pesticide-use data. The other authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Mesnage, R., Straw, E.A., Antoniou, M.N. et al. Improving pesticide-use data for the EU. Nat Ecol Evol 5, 1560 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01574-1

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