In the last decade pesticide sales have plummeted by -32% in Italian agriculture, which ranks as the greenest in Europe. This is what emerges from an analysis by Italian farmers association Coldiretti on Eurostat data for the period between 2011 and 2019. This trend is in contrast to other major producing countries’ such as Spain and Germany, where the consumption of pesticides grows, while in France the fall is just over -10%.

According to latest Coldiretti’s analysis on EFSA data (on 96,302 food samples on sale in the European Union) the number of non-EU agri-food products with irregular chemical residues is 5.6%, compared to the EU average of 1.3% and just 0.9% in Italy.