The Swedish Plant Protection Council
The Swedish Plant Protection Council is formed under a governmental mandate to the Swedish Board of Agriculture ranging to year 2025, as part of a long term political agreement of the Swedish National Strategy for Food Production.
The two cornerstones of the tasks of the council are the Sustainable Use of Pesticides Directive 2009/128/EC and the Regulation Concerning the Placing of Plant Protection Products on the Market (EC) 1107/2009. The eleven participants of the council include five key governmental agencies involved in implementing regulations concerning plant protection, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, advisory and farmers associations, a nongovernmental environmental organization and the Swedish crop protection association.
Task of the Council
The remit of the Swedish Plant Protection Council is to constitute a collaborative forum facilitating the dialogue and exchange of information among and between stakeholders and authorities in Sweden with a broad focus on forward planning on needs, availability and sustainability of plant protection methods for the Swedish agriculture. Also, at present the mandate is supported by a funding of approximately 100.000 euros yearly to finance specific activities, studies and reports that may be necessary to help bringing the overall situation around plant protection issues in Sweden in a more favourable direction in terms of for example
- sufficient availability of plant protection methods to cover for farmers needs
- predictability of the need for and availability of plant protection methods
- stimulating an increased availability and use of low risk plant protection products
- supporting a sustainable use of chemical pesticides
- understanding of the impact of the legal framework of pesticides regulations
- connecting dots between practical farming principles and regulatory concerns
- increasing relevance and compliance of conditions of use of plant protection products.
Publications of the Swedish Plant Protection Council
Below is a compilation of reports and supporting documents commissioned by the Swedish Plant Protection Council. All publications are written in Swedish and are also accessible under the relevant sections of the Swedish part of this webpage.
2026
- Impact on Swedish food production from a phase-out of plant protection products that may form TFA – Summary of conclusions pdf, 317 kB.
- Impact assessment – phase-out of plant protection products that may form TFA: potato production in Sweden pdf, 2.2 MB.Impact assessment – phase-out of plant protection products that may form TFA: insecticides in Swedish agriculture and horticulture pdf, 938.7 kB.Impact assessment – phase-out of plant protection products that may form TFA: herbicides in Swedish agriculture and horticulture pdf, 1.2 MB.Impact assessment – phase-out of plant protection products that may form TFA: fungicides in Swedish agriculture and horticulture pdf, 724 kB.
2025
- Availability of plant protection products – current situation, challenges and proposed measures pdf, 542.8 kB.
- Variety mixtures in Swedish crop production (pub.epsilon.slu.se)
- Mapping and description of Swedish field trial data in plant protection and weed control pdf, 1.1 MB.
- Forecasting and warning services of the Swedish Board of Agriculture – background, data collection methods and use of field trial data pdf, 3.1 MB.
- Sustainable plant protection from a social perspective (publications.slu.se)
- Greenhouses – illustrations of technical solutions pdf, 1.3 MB.
2024
- Access to healthy cereal seed at risk pdf, 845.2 kB.
- Chemical leakage from greenhouses – basis for investment support and advisory services pdf, 730.2 kB.
- Reducing and tracing risks of plant protection product use for pollinating insects in agricultural landscapes pdf, 2.9 MB.
- Overview of regulations and support related to the protection and promotion of pollinators pdf, 453.2 kB.
- Distribution of plant protection product use over the year pdf, 413.4 kB.
- Farming without chemical plant protection products – with compensation for yield losses pdf, 542 kB.
- Outlook on precision application at Agritechnica 2023 pdf, 14.4 MB.
2023
- Statistics on plant protection products – where do the volumes go? pdf, 181 kB.
- Statistics from sprayer inspection protocols 2021–2022 pdf, 1.2 MB.
- Precision application and other technologies in plant protection – conditions for reducing the use of chemical plant protection products by 2030
- Potential applications of new genomic techniques in integrated pest management (publications.slu.se)
- Sustainable plant protection – possible indicators and economic aspects of diversification(publications.slu.se)
2021
- Precision application in plant protection – current status, opportunities and barriers for future developmentEvaluation of the effects of the diflufenican campaign 2018–2020 (publications.slu.se)
- Chemical leakage from greenhouses – mapping of the current situation and investment needs pdf, 1.2 MB.Chemical leakage from greenhouses Annex – overview of leakage pathways pdf, 46.8 kB.
2019
- Statistics on chemical plant protection products – background, description and current data collection pdf, 1.6 MB.
- Residues of plant protection products in apples (2013, 2015 and 2017) (livsmedelsverket.se)
- Growth regulators in cereals – a trend analysis (livsmedelsverket.se)
- Proposal for a new calculation method for predicted environmental concentrations (PEC) of plant protection products in surface water (slu.se)What effects could a ban on glyphosate have?
- Can we predict which plant protection products will disappear from the market?
- Barriers to increased use of alternative pest control methods
Events
December 11, 2020, a digital workshop on leakage of pesticides from greenhouses were arranged by SLU Centre for pesticides in the environment on the behalf of the Swedish Plant Protection Council. There were about 30 participants from Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway and Finland and the aim was to have a focused discussion on different measures to reduce the risk of leakage of pesticide residuals from greenhouses.
If you would like to know more or take part in presentations from the workshop, you can contact us via e‑mail.
Contact us
Want to get in contact with the Council? Please send an e-mail.
Revision date: 2025-08-12