Will the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR) Achieve What We Need?

The regulation aims to reduce pesticide use and risk by 50% by 2030, but the risk indicators aren’t clear enough to get us there

Mid-2022, the European Commission (EC) adopted proposals for a new regulation on the sustainable use of pesticides, also called the Sustainable Use Regulation (SUR). The SUR is part of a package of measures to reduce the environmental footprint of the European Union’s (EU) food system and to help mitigate the economic losses due to climate change and biodiversity loss. These ambitions have been set in the EU Green Deal, and the Biodiversity and Farm-to-Fork strategies. Important measures in the proposal for the SUR include:

• Legally binding targets at the EU level to reduce by 2030 the use and risk of chemical pesticides, as well as the use of the more hazardous pesticides by 50%.
• A ban on all pesticides in sensitive areas, such as urban green areas and protected areas as defined in Natura-2000, as well as any ecologically sensitive area that draw threatened pollinators, such as bees.

It is beyond question that it is in the interest of humanity and all living creatures to preserve the planet and its biodiversity, and to live a healthy life. The EU Green Deal is therefore the understandable political answer to that need. This goes hand-in-hand with a critical look on pesticide use.

But is the SUR going to achieve what we want?

As set in the SUR, pesticide use in the EU is monitored using two so-called Harmonized Risk Indicators (HRIs). Each Member State should calculate the HRIs on an annual basis, make these public and use these to monitor the national developments related to pesticide use. The Member State data are integrated in an overview at the EU level.

The first, HRI-1, is calculated by multiplying the annual quantities of active substances in plant protection products on the market (Reg. (EC) 1107/2009) by a weighing factor. The weighing factor is 1, 16, 64, or 8 depending on whether the active substance is respectively a low-risk substance, a candidate for substitution, a non-approved active substance, or an active substance not falling in the former three categories. Outcomes are summed up for all active substances used in the Member State. The average result of the above calculation for the period 2011-2013 is used as reference to monitor annual developments.

The second, HRI-2, is calculated by multiplying the number of plant protection products authorized by the same weighing factors as given above for HRI-1. Outcomes are summed up for all authorizations in the Member State. Similar to HRI-1, the average result of the above calculation for the period 2011-2013 is used as reference. By January 1, 2027, HRI-2 will be refined by including into the equation the area treated with the plant protection product, resulting in HRI-2a. Developments in HRI-2a will be monitored relative to the period 2022-2024.

Questions SUR doesn't address

What resonates in this SUR proposal is the ambition to reduce by 50% the use and the risk of pesticides. But there are inherent questions that SUR doesn’t address such as:

• Is the European Commission going to achieve a reduction in the use of pesticides? Highly uncertain. Farmers will need alternatives for the banned pesticides in order to achieve similar economically acceptable crop yields. Talking about chemicals, ‘less toxic’ in general is synonym to ‘less potent’. In order to reach proper efficacy, higher dose levels and/or more frequent applications of the plant protection products might be necessary. Thus, the use of less toxic alternatives will probably lead to an increased use of these pesticides. And we have not even counted the resources and pollution associated with more frequent applications needed to achieve efficacy.
• What about the risk of pesticides? Is the EC going to achieve a 50% risk reduction by monitoring the currently defined HRI? Here as well, the answer seems to be NO. An important question to ask is whether the defined HRIs are indicators of risk at all. Risk is the product of hazard and exposure. In the equation used for the calculation of the HRIs, a weighting factor has been included that is dependent on the category in which the active substance falls. These four categories are supposed to be seen as hazard groups, but is this scientifically meaningful? The answer is: absolutely not! The weighting factor is nothing more than an arbitrary number associated with the regulatory status of a very diverse group of chemicals with very diverse mechanisms of toxicity. Since there is no proper measure for hazard in the HRI-equation, the equation is only based on volumes used and therefore HRIs cannot be considered indicative of pesticide risk. Whereas SUR states that HRIs should be used to monitor progress achieved in the reduction of risks and adverse impacts to human health and the environment from the use of PPP, they are just numbers with questionable meaning when it comes to risks for human and the environment.

The HRIs defined in the proposal for SUR are an over-simplification of the situation and may even be misleading, thereby negatively impacting the ambitions of the EU Green Deal. Moreover, this might unnecessarily penalize not only the agrochemical industry, but also put the EU food market at risk. It therefore remains to be determined whose needs are actually served by the SUR.