BeeLife co-signed a joint contribution on the SAIO Regulation
With 15 other NGOs we co-signed a joint contribution, requesting national governments represented in the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed (PAFF committee) to adopt rules to record pesticide uses. Clear statistics on pesticide use are key to monitoring pesticide reduction!
Professional users of pesticides have had to record their use of pesticides for more than 10 years. However, unless national laws provide otherwise, they can still keep these records in handwritten paper form. This makes their collection more difficult and therefore their usefulness is more limited. Meanwhile, the agrochemical industry has been developing many IT tools enabling digital farming, or more generally precision farming. It is therefore about time that public authorities get data on pesticide use in electronic format.
These records are not only necessary for public authorities to carry out controls, (i.e. ensuring that the plant protection product are used in line with the applicable rules), they are also meant to enable the efficient monitoring of pesticides in water and the minimisation of pesticide use in protected sites and other sensitive areas.
The digitalisation of the pesticides use records is a key piece of the puzzle to enable long overdue meaningful pesticide use statistics across the EU.
That is why we call on the national governments represented in the PAFF committee to vote in favour of the adaptation of the SAIO (Statistics on Agricultural Input and Output) Implementing Regulation at their next meeting scheduled for December 2022.
Download the joint contribution with the signatures.