Pesticides are widely utilised in the majority of the world’s modern agriculture systems, serving a crucial role in the protection of crops against insects, weeds, fungi and other agents that can cause yield loss and quality damage to food products and supply.
However, there are concerns that the overuse or incorrect use of pesticides can be dangerous to the environment and humans. Poorly used pesticides can cause harm to pollinators, birds, soil organisms, freshwater ecosystems and human health. Pesticides can move out of the treated crop and into adjacent rivers, groundwater, hedgerows and habitats. The development of pest resistance, leading to increased use of pesticides, also creates a long-term threat.
So it is not a question of whether we need pesticides or not. Rather, we can ask how we can reduce the risks of pesticide use and still maintain productive and resilient agricultural systems. Here, national action plans for pesticides could play an important role.
Why pesticide risk is a policy issue
Pesticide risk is not just a farm-level issue. It is also a policy issue.
While it is individuals on the ground who are applying the products and making choices on day-to-day control measures, their actions are in response to the context of the system they are working within: markets, advice, regulation, product availability, training and capacity, subsidy, weather, cropping pattern and consumer trends.
Where the incentive is to maximise production and minimise short-term costs, there are barriers to reducing risk. A national action plan for pesticides can pull these strands together, providing clear goals, responsibilities and a way forward to reduce risk over time. It can integrate pesticide regulation with issues of agriculture and land management, health, water, biodiversity, research, training and environmental governance.
Without this, pesticide policy is often fragmented. There may be the regulator approving products, the water company, the farmer adviser and the conservation NGO monitoring biodiversity decline, each of whom sees only a part of the picture. With a good national action plan, they can come together to address the problem more effectively.
It is not just about how much pesticide is used
Focusing only on volume is an inadequate measure, and can sometimes be misleading. A lower amount of a highly toxic product may result in greater risk than a larger volume applied to a lower-risk product. Other factors that need to be taken into account include timing and location, application method, target pest and environmental sensitivity.
A national action plan for pesticides should focus on risk, rather than just use. This could mean asking specific questions such as: which compounds cause the most concern, and where are they used? Are these water-sensitive areas, habitat for pollinators and other wildlife, or areas near human settlements and protected land? What is done to protect people, the community and workers? Is the farmer receiving training, advice and capacity building to help them reduce unnecessary applications, use better alternatives or adopt integrated pest management?
These questions offer a more helpful set of metrics than a headline on use. This enables policymakers to place their emphasis in areas where the environmental and health effects are likely to be the highest.
Integrated pest management as a cornerstone
A key learning from national action plans has been the importance of integrated pest management.
Integrated pest management, also known as IPM, is a simple concept: pesticides should not be the first or sole option for addressing pest issues. They need to be only one component within a holistic approach.
Such a strategy could involve crop rotation, pest-resistant crops, measures to improve soil health, the use of biological controls, mechanical weeding, encouraging habitats for beneficial insects, more effective surveillance, better predictions, and using chemicals more precisely when required.
The goal is not always to eliminate all pesticides. It is to reduce reliance on the regular application of chemicals and use pesticides more specifically, at the right time and more effectively.
For integrated pest management to be successful, farmers need tangible support. It cannot just be one line in a policy document. Farmers require advice and support, training, monitoring equipment, demonstration sites, and the right market conditions for the use of lower-risk practices.
A national action plan that refers to integrated pest management but does not fund the provision of advice and support for its use will not achieve much.
Minimising the impact of pesticides on nature
There is a clear link between pesticide risks and biodiversity.
Exposure to pesticides can impact pollinating insects, birds, aquatic organisms, soil organisms and natural pest predators. It is not simply that nature is valuable and deserves to be protected, but that many of those natural organisms are essential to agriculture.
Pollinators provide services to the crop sector, soil organisms can be important to soil quality and productivity, and predatory insects and birds can be used to control some pests. It is beneficial to have healthy field margins, hedges, wetland areas and grasslands to promote a diverse agricultural landscape.
It is essential that policy on pesticides is therefore linked to broader biodiversity policy. A national action plan should not only focus on the products. It needs to also consider habitat, landscapes and the recovery of ecosystems.
This can be achieved in practical terms by introducing buffer zones around watercourses, setting aside areas where pesticides cannot be used near areas of high conservation interest, supporting the establishment of wildflower field margins, avoiding spraying during times of peak pollinator activity, and protecting areas with high conservation value.
Addressing risk from pesticides should be part of the wider context of work being carried out on biodiversity, agriculture and land management.
Water protection should be a priority
Pesticides do not always stay in the areas in which they are used.
These chemicals can end up in rivers, lakes, wetlands and groundwater through surface runoff, subsurface flow, spray drift, soil erosion or the poor storage and disposal of product containers. If this material enters the aquatic system, it can affect aquatic organisms and the work that water providers have to do to produce potable water.
Water protection should therefore be one of the most important features of any pesticides national action plan.
High-quality plans should identify vulnerable areas in catchments, monitor for pesticide residues in surface water and groundwater, and focus efforts where there is most risk. They should further promote the use of good practice, safe storage, disposal of containers and restrictions on use near watercourses.
It is here that pesticide policy intersects directly with water, marine and fisheries policy. Freshwater ecosystems are already under pressure from pollution, abstraction, habitat modification and climate change. Poorly managed pesticide risk makes things worse.
Reducing pesticide risk is therefore not just about agriculture. It is about clean rivers, wetlands, drinking water and aquatic life.
Training, advice and accountability
A national action plan is only as good as its implementation.
Farmers, contractors, retailers, advisers and regulators need to understand what their role is. Training is essential as many risks result from day-to-day decisions about when and how much to spray, which equipment is most appropriate, how to avoid spray drift, how to read the label, how to protect workers and how to store products safely.
It is also important to access independent advice. If pesticide advice is largely sourced from the product sellers, then the system may be encouraging users to become more dependent on pesticides. Advice needs to be both practically useful and agronomically sound, but also aligned with risk reduction.
Accountability is also important. National plans should have targets, timelines, monitoring arrangements and some form of public reporting. Without them, there is a risk that the national plans may become little more than empty exercises.
The best national action plans are not just lists of good intentions. They put in place systems that check if the risks from pesticides are falling.
Supporting farmers in the transition
Reducing pesticide risks should not be seen as a directive to farmers to “do better”.
Farmers are under real pressure. In the midst of climatic instability, outbreaks of pests, rising costs for inputs, challenges with labour, high standards set by buyers, and razor-thin margins, adoption will only be slow if the alternatives are more expensive, more complex or just unfamiliar.
National action plans need to be aware of that.
Support could take many forms, such as funding for the provision of expert advice, funding for nature-friendly practices, investment in research, access to tools for monitoring pests, support for the development of precision application technologies, and incentives to diversify the crops they grow.
The food industry and supermarkets have a part to play. If supermarkets and buyers insist on the most stringent product standards without supporting farmers to grow produce with lower levels of pesticides, they may be unintentionally supporting unnecessary use of pesticides. Effective risk reduction requires collaboration across the food chain, not just action within the farm business.
For the transition to successful pest management to take place, making it possible and economically profitable for farmers is essential.
The role of data in making good policy
Good pesticide policy relies on good data.
It is important for governments to have a clearer understanding of which pesticides are being used, where they are being used, the frequency of their use and the impacts occurring within the environment. Without this information, it will be difficult to know what the risks are or to monitor how the situation is developing.
Monitoring should go beyond just pesticide use and sales. It should include water quality, trends in biodiversity and residues, the number of poisoning incidents, trends in resistance and the use of IPM methods and approaches.
Data must also be usable. If data is gathered but not shared between agencies, it will not enhance decision-making; and if monitoring outputs are too vague, they will not effectively inform targeted action. National action plans can bridge the gaps between data collection, research, regulation and practical agricultural extension.
Sidestepping the substitution trap
If the use of a single harmful pesticide is merely replaced by another with comparable or varying risks, this would not suffice. Known as regrettable substitution, it occurs when a chemical, once banned or restricted, gets replaced by an alternative that subsequently reveals its own environmental and/or human health risks.
As such, national action plans must focus on systems, rather than just substances. We need to move away from an emphasis on chemicals, and rather reduce our overall reliance on high-risk chemical control, not just switch between individual products. Integrated pest management, crop diversity, habitat management and prevention are thus equally vital.
After all, the safest pesticide is the one that does not need to be applied.
Features of robust national action plans
Although each country is distinct in terms of cropping systems, climate, pests, institutions, farming systems and economic conditions, there are certain qualities common to many strong national action plans.
Strong national action plans commonly include:
- Defining explicit risk reduction objectives;
- Targeting the most hazardous active substances and highest-risk uses;
- Promoting integrated pest management;
- Ensuring the protection of water resources, biodiversity and human health;
- Assisting farmers in adopting these practices;
- Providing farmer training and impartial advice;
- Collecting and analysing robust, practical data;
- Communicating progress publicly;
- Engaging stakeholders throughout, from farmers, scientists and regulators to civil society organisations and the agri-food sector;
- Continuously revisiting and updating goals as new information and evidence become available;
- Viewing the reduction of pesticide risk as a long-term transition, not a one-off, bureaucratic exercise.
From pesticide control to smarter pest management
It is crucial to be clear about what pesticide risk reduction does not mean. It is certainly not about ignoring reality: that pests exist and cause crop diseases, that farmers grow food, and that pests and crop disease affect food production.
Instead, it is about creating a smarter system that relies less on conventional chemical-based approaches and, to a greater degree, prevention, monitoring, resilience and intervention. National action plans can play an important role in making such a transformation, turning generalised environmental aspirations into clear objectives, concrete action and measurable improvements.
The best national action plans understand that risks from pesticides lie at the junction of production, biodiversity and water, public health and governance. They approach the question of pesticides not as just a technical matter, but as a matter of how we farm and manage land.
And this is, I think, the key takeaway:
Pesticide risk reduction is best achieved not by aiming at a single goal, that is, reduced use of chemicals, but by helping to create a new reality of healthier fields and farmland, cleaner water, more biodiverse ecosystems, and resilient production and food systems.
