Pesticides sales in Italy have fallen by 32% in the last decade

Sales of pesticides have dropped by about 1/3 (-32%) in the last decade in Italian agriculture which ranks as the greenest in Europe. This is what emerges from an analysis by Coldiretti on Eurostat data relating to the period between 2011 and 2019. A trend in contrast with the other large producing countries such as Spain and Germany where the consumption of pesticides is growing while in France the reduction is just over 10%. The result for consumers is that foreign food and drinks are six times more dangerous than those made in Italy with the number of non-EU agri-food products with irregular chemical residues equal to 5.6% compared to the EU average of 1,3% and just 0.9% of Italy, according to Coldiretti's analysis of Efsa data which thoroughly analyzed 96,302 samples of food on sale in the European Union, providing a cross-section of the presence of pesticide residues on fruit, vegetables, cereals, milk and wine produced within EU countries or from abroad.

"Faced with these results, it is necessary to advance along the path for transparency on the obligation to indicate the origin of the food on the label which has now reached 4/5 of the expense (from meat to milk, from fresh fruit and vegetables to tomato preserves, from cheeses with cured meats) even if it is not yet possible to know the origin for products such as fruit transformed into juices and jams, canned vegetables and legumes or sugar", explains the association.

Italian agriculture is first in Europe for added value but it is also the greenest and can count on the undisputed leadership for food quality with 313 Dop / Igp / Stg specialties, including great cheeses, cured meats and hams, recognized at community level and 415 DOC / DOCG wines, 5155 traditional regional products surveyed along the peninsula, the leadership in the organic sector with about 80 thousand organic farms and the primacy of world food security with the lowest number of agri-food products with irregular chemical residues. "And Italy is also a leader in biodiversity but can also count on the largest direct sales network of farmers in the world thanks to the Campagna Amica foundation which has always continued to guarantee healthy, genuine and zero-kilometer products to the population", concludes a note.