Field-specific risk management for plant protection products: a "digitalized" way forward

Digitalization in agriculture is rapidly progressing. Smart farming technology and usage of farm management information systems implementing detailed geospatial data are used more frequently. The authorization approach of plant protection products in Europe does not currently make use of these advances. A 90th percentile protection goal is currently often established based on a few scenarios representing a realistic worst case of agri-environmental conditions. Within this process, the products receive authorization and mitigation requirements on the product label, which usually cover all fields, no matter whether the field is very vulnerable or not. This is a pragmatic approach that may lead to sufficient protection of most fields while other fields are accepted as being underprotected. To overcome the limitations of the current assessment based on a few worst-case scenarios, a transformation of the current risk assessment scheme towards a digital-driven field-specific risk management is proposed in three phases. The risk assessment procedure on European Union and Member State level would remain in large parts as it is. All three phases make use of the availability of farm management information systems to distribute field-specific restrictions and mitigation requirements. In phase 1, the mitigation requirements, based on standard regulatory scenarios (e.g., FOCUS [Forum for Co-ordination of Pesticide Fate Models and Their Use]), are transferred to the specific fields showing the closest similarities of environmental conditions. In phase 2, field-specific modeling is performed where the standard parameterization can be adapted for local conditions. In phase 3, geospatial data are used to derive field-specific parameterizations for the exposure and effect models. In all phases, each field receives application restrictions and mitigation requirements depending on the local situation, which farmers can provide by combining different mitigation options from a mitigation toolbox. The proposed scheme increases protection of biodiversity without compromising yield production.