Pesticide tax in the EU – Various levy concepts and their impact on pesticide reduction
Creators: name: Möckel, Stefan
name: Gawel, Erik
name: Liess, Matthias
name: Neumeister, Lars
Publisher: name: UFZ
Year: 2024
Subjects: European Union, Green Deal, Farm to Fork, pesticides, levy, tax, simulation, competences

description: Crop protection can be achieved in many ways: with preventive and adaptive cultivation as well as mechanical, biological, or chemical measures that minimise harmful organisms. In this regard, manufacturers of chemical plant protection products promote their goods as the simplest and cheapest method. However, the active substances (pesticides) involved also have the most far-reaching effects on the environment, as they regularly affect non-target organisms in the treated area as well as soil; the respective substances are also carried to other areas and stretches of water by wind as well as water. Moreover, they pose risks to the health of users and residents but even more the consumers of treated agricultural products due to residues. Sustainable plant protection, i.e., plant protection that considers the environment and human health in the long term, can therefore only be achieved by widely minimising the use of pesticides.Respective goals have existed at the European level for a long time. The Member States of the European Union have committed to allow only integrated crop protection from 2014 on at the latest, giving priority to non-chemical measures (Art. 55 Regulation 1107/2009/EC and Art. 14 Directive 2009/128/EC). According to its Green Deal strategies for agriculture, biodiversity and pollution, the European Commission wants to halve both the use and risk of chemical pesticides as well as the use of higher-risk pesticides by 2030.These goals are difficult to achieve with stricter European regulations on authorisation and use only, unless the European legislator tightens authorisation requirements for pesticides significantly and, in particular, severely restricts the spatial as well as substantial scope of use as well as invests in an area-wide control of application requirements. However, a (tax or non-tax) levy could change the cost-benefit analysis underlying pesticide use so that, due to the economic incentives established by the regulatory framework, pesticides would be used more sparingly, and more non-chemical plant protection methods would come to bear. Experiences in some Member States have already demonstrated such positive effects.In our study, we compare different concepts for a levy on pesticides and analyse in particular developments in Denmark, where a risk-based pesticide tax was introduced in 2013. Taking Germany as an example, we use a dynamic database approach to simulate the different steering effects of the various levy concepts in order to estimate how different levies would change pesticide use in terms of quantity, treatable area, and risks. What the simulation made clear is that it is important to consider the differences in the authorised maximum application doses per hectare and year per respective pesticide when designing a levy; after all, these doses can vary up to a thousand-fold due to the different efficacy of the active substances used. The results of the simulation and the derived recommendations can be applied to other Member States and the EU as a whole.Based on the study Möckel et al. 2021 written in German language, the text presented here additionally examines and unpacks the legal backdrop for introducing an EU-wide levy. For this purpose, the sections of the original study were omitted that looked into the current use of plant protection products in Germany and outlined the legal conditions for an introduction in Germany.The authors thank the GLS Bank and other financial backers listed on page two for they support. They made this study and its English language version possible in the first place. Most parts of text was translated by Harry Bauer, London.