UK Pesticides National Action Plan 2025 – A reaction
Peter Shakespeare, Certis Belchim country manager – UK
Framed against the UK’s statutory obligations in pesticide regulation, the 2025 Pesticides National Action Plan (NAP) has three clear objectives:
1. Encourage uptake of Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
2. Set targets and measures to monitor use of pesticides
3. Strengthen compliance to ensure safety and better environmental outcomes
For anyone involved in agronomy or crop protection the document’s introduction is encouraging.
It acknowledges that “pesticides play an important role in protecting crops to support domestic food production” and it sets out a strategy for managing pesticide use and minimising risk.
To pursue the three objectives, 18 actions are stated, which continue in this common sense vain. However, they are broad brush, and one wonders what it will all cost and whether the budget will be sustainable.
In its response to the NAP, the NFU criticised it for being short on detail, but to be fair to the authors, it is stated as the starting point of a new journey with detail to follow.
The NFU added that it would have been good to see the NAP mark the progress we’ve made and that its focus on IPM aligns with the NFU’s strategy of putting IPM at the heart of all crop protection.
Most farmers and growers are already practising IPM instinctively, by the rotation they use, the varieties they grow, the cultivations and sowing dates they choose, and use of plant protection products when needed is often based on risk and thresholds.
Encouraging IPM
This first section begins with encouraging words too, acknowledging that we need a diverse range of pest management solutions to support sustainable food production and management of amenity areas.
It also recognises the importance of managing resistance in target weeds, pests and diseases.
The withdrawal of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) just days prior to the new NAP was unfortunate, as it prevents further uptake of the SFI’s four IPM actions and three application actions, for the time being. But there is commitment to re-open it later this summer.
With active substances being lost at an alarming rate, those involved in action 7 – develop a horizon scanning capability to identify, understand and mitigate pest control gaps – will have their work cut out.
It says this will allow Government to see where alternatives are required, and to identify research and development priorities.
This is a worthy aim but raises questions about the role of Government versus industry and the direction of pesticide regulation.
The continued loss of actives has been the direct result of adopting the EU’s hazard-based approach, so are we going to return to a more balanced and scientifically sensible approach of risk based?
If not, there’s precious little horizon scanning can do to stem the tide of loss.
The NAP expects more biopesticides to emerge and states a will to improve their availability across a broader range of crops. This would increase the tools that can be used as part of an IPM approach to ensure a sustainable future.
Concerning precision application, action 6 will explore the potential benefits of application by drones and whether rules and guidance need to be amended. This could potentially facilitate the uptake of biological controls as many are classified as low risk.
Under action 9 there will also be consideration of how improvements can be made to the arrangements for GB biopesticides to reduce burdens, without compromising environmental and human health standards.
The challenge will be striking the right balance that removes unnecessary barriers to new product introductions while maintaining standards of efficacy and safety to prevent pseudo biologicals finding their way into use and the food chain.
Setting targets and measures
The NAP launches a new measure – the Pesticide Load Indicator (PLI) – which moves us forward from the current one-dimensional measure of quantity to a multi-dimensional one that takes account of the chemical properties of pesticides used.
It will have 16 potential harm metrics (by species and acute/chronic toxicity) and four behaviour metrics, which have been designed to consider how pesticides behave in the real world.
For each metric, the scores for every pesticide are combined with the quantity of that pesticide applied across the UK in any given year and these values are summed to produce an overall annual score allowing trends to be assessed over time.
It seems the government has learnt from the EU’s lesson in setting an unachievable 50% target for pesticide use reduction in their ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy and we see a pragmatic target to reduce each of the UK PLI metrics by at least 10% by 2030 from a 2018 baseline.
Although DEFRA is throwing a lot of weight behind its new PLI measure, we must view it with caution.
It is a weighted hazard metric, however a risk-based approach would allow for a more nuanced and targeted approach to pesticide regulation in the UK.
Strengthening compliance
I would like to think that our industry is typically British in sticking to the letter of the law, including the Codes of Practice for using pesticides. We recognise the importance of safe and responsible use and assurance bodies demand it.
As well as storage, handling and disposal, equipment testing, training and enforcement, this section addresses online sales of plant protection products (PPPs) as an area of concern.
It references studies in 2022 and 2023 which showed that members of the public who are not qualified to use professional PPPs could purchase them.
As a result, the government commissioned online sales banner testing research to design and test warnings to be incorporated into sales listings to inform purchasers what they are legally allowed to use.
While the NAP commits to take forward the recommendations of this research under action 18, I fear it may be too light a touch.
Currently the onus of compliance is on the user, the sprayer operator, rather than the purchaser, which leaves a very big loophole for the less scrupulous.
We must eliminate non-compliance purchasers, but without putting any greater financial burden on professional users, such as farmers.
The compliance section includes in action 16 that it will review how membership of industry/assurance schemes might be considered as part of assessing users’ risk profiles, so inspections are better targeted.
This will certainly help focus resources where they are most needed and pacify professional farmers and growers who see the official inspections as duplicating what they already do for their assurance body.
In summary
So, a long-awaited new NAP with much to be welcomed and little to be feared.
One thing I would encourage all to do is refer to Annex 2 IPM Principles and read the page and a half summary of What does IPM mean in practice?
Just about every stakeholder has their individual slant on what IPM means and we would help ourselves pull together as an industry by supporting and learning this definition.
Importantly under Intervention and control, it states that sustainable physical, biological, and other non-chemical methods must be preferred to chemical methods, if they are practical and provide satisfactory pest control.
Developing and providing biorational PPPs is Certis Belchim’s mission and in our G4TF initiative, we work to integrate them with chemical and other methods of control to develop IPM strategies, which will serve the direction of the new NAP well.
UK Pesticides National Action Plan 2025 – A reaction
Peter Shakespeare, Certis Belchim country manager – UK
Framed against the UK’s statutory obligations in pesticide regulation, the 2025 Pesticides National Action Plan (NAP) has three clear objectives:
1. Encourage uptake of Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
2. Set targets and measures to monitor use of pesticides
3. Strengthen compliance to ensure safety and better environmental outcomes
For anyone involved in agronomy or crop protection the document’s introduction is encouraging.
It acknowledges that “pesticides play an important role in protecting crops to support domestic food production” and it sets out a strategy for managing pesticide use and minimising risk.
To pursue the three objectives, 18 actions are stated, which continue in this common sense vain. However, they are broad brush, and one wonders what it will all cost and whether the budget will be sustainable.
In its response to the NAP, the NFU criticised it for being short on detail, but to be fair to the authors, it is stated as the starting point of a new journey with detail to follow.
The NFU added that it would have been good to see the NAP mark the progress we’ve made and that its focus on IPM aligns with the NFU’s strategy of putting IPM at the heart of all crop protection.
Most farmers and growers are already practising IPM instinctively, by the rotation they use, the varieties they grow, the cultivations and sowing dates they choose, and use of plant protection products when needed is often based on risk and thresholds.
Encouraging IPM
This first section begins with encouraging words too, acknowledging that we need a diverse range of pest management solutions to support sustainable food production and management of amenity areas.
It also recognises the importance of managing resistance in target weeds, pests and diseases.
The withdrawal of the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) just days prior to the new NAP was unfortunate, as it prevents further uptake of the SFI’s four IPM actions and three application actions, for the time being. But there is commitment to re-open it later this summer.
With active substances being lost at an alarming rate, those involved in action 7 – develop a horizon scanning capability to identify, understand and mitigate pest control gaps – will have their work cut out.
It says this will allow Government to see where alternatives are required, and to identify research and development priorities.
This is a worthy aim but raises questions about the role of Government versus industry and the direction of pesticide regulation.
The continued loss of actives has been the direct result of adopting the EU’s hazard-based approach, so are we going to return to a more balanced and scientifically sensible approach of risk based?
If not, there’s precious little horizon scanning can do to stem the tide of loss.
The NAP expects more biopesticides to emerge and states a will to improve their availability across a broader range of crops. This would increase the tools that can be used as part of an IPM approach to ensure a sustainable future.
Concerning precision application, action 6 will explore the potential benefits of application by drones and whether rules and guidance need to be amended. This could potentially facilitate the uptake of biological controls as many are classified as low risk.
Under action 9 there will also be consideration of how improvements can be made to the arrangements for GB biopesticides to reduce burdens, without compromising environmental and human health standards.
The challenge will be striking the right balance that removes unnecessary barriers to new product introductions while maintaining standards of efficacy and safety to prevent pseudo biologicals finding their way into use and the food chain.
Setting targets and measures
The NAP launches a new measure – the Pesticide Load Indicator (PLI) – which moves us forward from the current one-dimensional measure of quantity to a multi-dimensional one that takes account of the chemical properties of pesticides used.
It will have 16 potential harm metrics (by species and acute/chronic toxicity) and four behaviour metrics, which have been designed to consider how pesticides behave in the real world.
For each metric, the scores for every pesticide are combined with the quantity of that pesticide applied across the UK in any given year and these values are summed to produce an overall annual score allowing trends to be assessed over time.
It seems the government has learnt from the EU’s lesson in setting an unachievable 50% target for pesticide use reduction in their ‘Farm to Fork’ strategy and we see a pragmatic target to reduce each of the UK PLI metrics by at least 10% by 2030 from a 2018 baseline.
Although DEFRA is throwing a lot of weight behind its new PLI measure, we must view it with caution.
It is a weighted hazard metric, however a risk-based approach would allow for a more nuanced and targeted approach to pesticide regulation in the UK.
Strengthening compliance
I would like to think that our industry is typically British in sticking to the letter of the law, including the Codes of Practice for using pesticides. We recognise the importance of safe and responsible use and assurance bodies demand it.
As well as storage, handling and disposal, equipment testing, training and enforcement, this section addresses online sales of plant protection products (PPPs) as an area of concern.
It references studies in 2022 and 2023 which showed that members of the public who are not qualified to use professional PPPs could purchase them.
As a result, the government commissioned online sales banner testing research to design and test warnings to be incorporated into sales listings to inform purchasers what they are legally allowed to use.
While the NAP commits to take forward the recommendations of this research under action 18, I fear it may be too light a touch.
Currently the onus of compliance is on the user, the sprayer operator, rather than the purchaser, which leaves a very big loophole for the less scrupulous.
We must eliminate non-compliance purchasers, but without putting any greater financial burden on professional users, such as farmers.
The compliance section includes in action 16 that it will review how membership of industry/assurance schemes might be considered as part of assessing users’ risk profiles, so inspections are better targeted.
This will certainly help focus resources where they are most needed and pacify professional farmers and growers who see the official inspections as duplicating what they already do for their assurance body.
In summary
So, a long-awaited new NAP with much to be welcomed and little to be feared.
One thing I would encourage all to do is refer to Annex 2 IPM Principles and read the page and a half summary of What does IPM mean in practice?
Just about every stakeholder has their individual slant on what IPM means and we would help ourselves pull together as an industry by supporting and learning this definition.
Importantly under Intervention and control, it states that sustainable physical, biological, and other non-chemical methods must be preferred to chemical methods, if they are practical and provide satisfactory pest control.
Developing and providing biorational PPPs is Certis Belchim’s mission and in our G4TF initiative, we work to integrate them with chemical and other methods of control to develop IPM strategies, which will serve the direction of the new NAP well.