The environmental risk assessment (ERA) of chemicals for insect pollinators (IPol-ERA), required under EU pesticides legislation, should in future follow a holistic approach incorporating the ‘one health’ concept, the EU’s biodiversity strategies, ‘Farm to Fork’ (F2F) and Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability by 2030, according to a roadmap published by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) on Saturday 4 November.
A consortium led by the University of Aarhus was commissioned in 2021 to draw up this roadmap following a call for tenders. It is intended to guide EFSA’s project to create a European partnership for the ERA “that meets the needs of society and the political objectives in the European Union”.
The systemic approach advocated must recognise the diversity and important role played by pollinating insects (such as the pollination services essential for food security), as well as the variety of habitats and contexts in which they live, with their multiple stress factors and the places where pesticides can be used.
The roadmap covers the following six areas of action:
. engage towards a joint IPol-ERA partnership;
. assess ecological consequences of chemical effects on insect pollinators;
. advance hazard and exposure characterisation;
. advance risk assessment of combined exposure to multiple chemicals in insect pollinators;
. develop landscape-scale population-level based ERA tools that account for environmental stressors;
. develop and implement a systems-based approach and promote its use and uptake in a regulatory context.
See the roadmap: https://aeur.eu/f/9e0 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)