The use of plant protection products is increasingly caught between sustainable and resource-conserving cultivation on the one hand and the protection of plants from harmful organisms on the other. Agricultural businesses are increasingly confronted with the challenge of reducing or completely dispensing with plant protection products (PPPs) due to environmental and health risks as well as regulatory changes. At the same time, plant protection products are seen as an important instrument for securing yields in terms of both quantity and quality through plant protection measures. The available portfolio of pesticide active ingredients in the European Union is currently undergoing massive change. Efforts are being made in the EU (see Farm to Fork Strategy) to reduce the use of PPPs. This not only has consequences for the environment, but also economic effects at farm, sector and national economic level.
Objective
As part of a project proposed by a project consortium (including AGES, BAB, BOKU, WIFO), an assessment is to be made of which active substances could no longer be available in the medium term, taking into account the currently valid evaluation criteria as well as future developments and requirements at European level. After analysing the potential treatment gaps, possible alternatives will be discussed and evaluated with regard to the state of the art, practicability and effectiveness, relevance for Austrian agriculture and the time horizon for future application and implementation. Based on these findings, the BAB focusses on the economic evaluation of PPP active ingredient losses at farm level and attempts to illustrate the economic effects at farm level using the example of one or more selected arable crops. Furthermore, adaptation strategies with regard to a potential elimination of pesticide active ingredients are to be evaluated economically.
Planned work 2025
Assuming a positive project assessment, the project work should start in the course of 2025. Preliminary work on modelling the effects of active ingredient losses at farm level includes an exploratory literature search and contacting other research institutions to explore the use of any synergy effects. Furthermore, the extent to which data on varieties and plant protection trials are available for the project will be examined in order to better estimate the economic effects of active ingredient losses with regard to yield development (both quantitatively and qualitatively). It also needs to be clarified which data can be used for modelling at farm level (e.g. accounting data, Invekos data, IDB data), how the modelling of scenarios should be designed and technically implemented (e.g. using a PMP model).
The preliminary work from the other work packages of the overall project (assessment of the relevance of active ingredient bans at crop species level and the derivation of possible alternative plant protection measures) is central to the implementation of the project. Based on these results, various scenarios will be derived for a set of farms (e.g. typical farms, record-keeping farms), which map different gradients of the loss of active substances and the associated effects on costs, yields and crop rotations and simulate them using the model. Based on local crop protection practices, this can mean, for example, the substitution of active ingredients by a combination of plant protection products that are still authorised, switching to alternative plant protection measures (e.g. mechanical plant protection), changing crop rotations (reducing the proportion or eliminating individual crops) or accepting yield reductions in terms of both quantity and quality. The economic evaluation of the elimination of crop protection agents is based on a holistic view of yields, direct costs and any special costs for long-term investments in specialised machinery. Depending on the data situation, aggregation at a spatial level is conceivable. Dealing with the short and long-term effects of active ingredient losses will be challenging. It is possible, for example, that the costs of alternative crop protection measures will increase in the short term, but that more stable yields can be achieved in the long term. A further challenge is the quantification of the experts' qualitative assessments of the relevance of the loss of different PPP active ingredients into concrete numerical values for use in modelling. Due to the high uncertainties and dependencies seen ex-ante, the work has the character of a feasibility study, the findings of which can be extended to other crops and indications.
Schedule
Project start: 04/2025 (depending on a positive overall project assessment)
Project end: 12/2027
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