The Council of the EU, the European Parliament and the European Commission reached, on Thursday 2 June, a provisional compromise on the draft regulation on agricultural input and output statistics (see EUROPE 12962/14).
The common ground found, which still needs to be confirmed by the EU Council and the European Parliament, foresees that Member States will collect high quality harmonised data on agricultural production.
The statistical data, especially the data on the use of pesticides in the EU, on organic farming, on fertilisers and on the use of antimicrobials, will be essential for reaching the ‘Farm to Fork’ and ‘Biodiversity’ Strategy targets.
The Parliament has guaranteed that data about pesticides should include active substances placed on the market and used in agricultural activities by crop and area treated and that they will be disseminated annually. The first set of data will be collected in 2026 and published in 2028.
The number of statistics collected from organic farmers will also be increased.
The Parliament’s rapporteur, Petros Kokkalis (The Left, Greece), welcomed the compromise for a more sustainable food system in the EU. Thanks to the new rules, “we will have at our disposal for the first time an efficient and effective tool to monitor the ‘Farm to Fork’ and ‘Biodiversity’ targets and the performance of the Common Agricultural Policy through high quality, harmonised, coherent and comparable statistical data. The European Parliament secured that Member States will be required to collect and report data on the use of pesticides annually. This is a prerequisite for minimising their risk and impact on the environment and human health as well as ensuring food security”.
The regulation must now be formally adopted by the Parliament and the EU Council before being published in the EU Official Journal and entered into force 20 days later. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)