Pesticide sales in Latvia rose significantly from 2011

Sep 02, 2023

The information comes from data on pesticide sales published recently. In 2021, 355 175 tonnes of pesticides were sold in the EU. This was a moderate increase of 2.7% compared with 2020 (346 000 tonnes) and represented a further rebound back towards the medium-term annual average between 2011 and 2021.

In terms of pesticides sold, the highest sales volumes in 2021 were for ‘fungicides and bactericides’ (44%), ‘herbicides, haulm destructors and moss killers’ (34%) and ‘insecticides and acaricides’ (14%).

Among EU countries, the volume of pesticides sold in 2021 were highest in Spain (21% of the EU total), France (20%), Germany and Italy (both 14%). These four countries are some of the EU's main agricultural producers.

Compared with 2011, 11 of the 16 EU countries with available data recorded a decrease in the sales of pesticides in 2021. The sharpest declines were recorded in Czechia (-36%), Denmark (-35%) and Portugal (-32%), followed by Italy (-29%) and Romania (-27%).

In contrast, Latvia (+85%) and Austria (+68%) reported significantly higher sales of pesticides in 2021 than in 2011. However, Eurostat did add: "It should be noted that the volumes of pesticides sold in Latvia in absolute terms are very low."

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