Farm-level environmental sustainability assessment of agricultural pest control strategies across Europe

Summary

Chemical pesticides used in plant protection products (PPPs) play an important role in securing crop yields but also contribute to ecosystem and human health impact. To understand environmental implications of pesticide usage across farming systems and strategies, we quantify the environmental impacts of pest control for 160 farms across 10 European countries, applying a full life cycle perspective. We integrate emission estimates from pesticide field applications, environmental interventions from supply chain processes, and spatial variation in ecological pressure. Results reveal that farm-level impact performance is highly affected by the type of pest control agents applied. Copper-based fungicides were identified to drive the chemical footprint in terms of human toxicity and ecotoxicity impacts across conventional, integrated pest management (IPM), and organic pest control scenarios, associated with supply chain and field-level emissions. Almost all considered organic farming scenarios performed better than IPM or conventional farming with respect to their chemical footprint (i.e. human toxicity and ecotoxicity impacts), with similar impact profiles for IPM and conventional farming practices. Due to reported extensive use of copper-based fungicides, some IPM and organic farming scenarios showed high toxicity impacts, driving overall human health and ecosystem quality impact for these scenarios. Spatial analysis highlights that only a limited number of pesticides contributes to local potential exceedance of ecotoxicity pressure across catchments. Our findings emphasize the role of supply chain emissions, including diesel fuel used for agricultural machinery and pesticide production, as important contributors to life cycle impacts, including impacts on climate change and natural resources. We identified critical trade-offs between pest control strategies, such as reduced chemical footprints from avoiding synthetic pesticides versus increased resource use and greenhouse gas emissions in IPM and organic farming scenarios. We highlight the importance of designing pest control strategies that minimize environmental impacts while maintaining agricultural productivity. Our study offers actionable insights for policymakers and stakeholders, informing the transition toward sustainable pest control practices aligned with European Green Deal objectives.