Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 31 March 2022
165. Deputy Steven Matthews asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the position regarding the status of a review of pesticide use across the agricultural sector as committed to in the programme for Government; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17027/22]
View answerThe Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine is carrying out the Programme for Government commitment through its implementation of the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive which includes a range of activities such as training, data gathering, registration of users, advisors and distributors of pesticides and testing of application equipment.
A number of measures are in place to review pesticide use across the agriculture sector. These include collection and analysis of pesticides sales data on an annual basis, a rolling programme of pesticide usage surveys, covering all the main crops, and calculation of Harmonised Risk Indicators for assessing trends in pesticide use.
These Harmonised Risk Indicators were established at EU level in 2019 to estimate the trends in pesticide use. The calculations for Ireland are updated annually, reported to the Commission and published. The latest figures for Ireland show a continuing downward trend.
Further developments to improve the collection and use of pesticide statistics and risk indicators are currently being considered at EU level as part of a new regulatory framework for the implementation of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy.
The Commission will present a proposal for a Regulation to replace the Sustainable Use Directive in the coming months and I will work constructively with other Member States in finalising and adopting this regulation.
