Crop protection in Europe

Crop protection products are the treatments used to protectcrops and keep them healthy. Also known as pesticides, they are thecrop growing equivalents of the medicines doctors use to safeguardour own health. They provide many benefits and are available foruse not only in agriculture, but also in horticulture, forestry andgardening.

Crop protection combines innovative science and technology toprotect farmers? crops from the many dangerous pests and diseasesthat threaten the quality and safety of our food.

In Europe, there are over 30,000 employees of pesticidemanufacturing companies, with an estimated additional 20,000 peopleemployed in distribution and support.

Did you know??

• In the EU, around 3% of the population produces three-quartersof the food supply.
  
• Organic farming makes use of both natural and man-madepesticides.
  
• It?s estimated that food produced in the next 25 years mustequal twice that of the last 10,000 years.
  
• If the world?s farmers today got the yields they achieved in1950, the world would need nearly three times as much cropland toproduce today?s food supply.
  
• There are more known carcinogens in a cup of coffee than in thepesticide residue on food one could comfortably eat in ayear.
  
• The low level of pesticides allowed in drinking water in the EUis equivalent to one part per ten billion (1 in 10,000,000,000) or4mm on the entire length of the equator.
  
• Pesticides are the most highly regulated chemicals inEurope.
  
• For every active ingredient that makes its way onto a field,there are over 139,000 that don?t make it onto themarket.
  

On average it costs ?200 million and 9 years for a pesticide tobe brought to the EU market.