The European Union statistics bureau newly released: pesticide sales volume in 28 member countries is 368400 tons, while sales volume in France is large

According to new data released by Eurostat, EU pesticide sales in 2018 were about 368420 tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.9%. Among them, fungicides ranked first, with sales volume of 168400 tons, up 4.3% year on year; herbicides ranked second, with sales volume of 128800 tons, up 1.4% year on year; insecticides ranked third, with sales volume of 39400 tons, up 7.4% year on year. It can be seen that all major product types have achieved sales growth. However, snail killing agents (- 32.4%), plant growth regulators (- 19.1%) and other products (- 8.1%) all showed a significant decline (Table 1). These data are collected in accordance with the EU pesticide statistics regulation (1185 / 2009), which allows some data to be removed from the total amount for reasons of confidentiality.

Table 1 sales volume of pesticides in 28 EU countries (tons) 2017-2018 1,2

In 2018, among the EU Member States, France sold 84970 tons of pesticides, accounting for 23.1% of the total EU pesticide sales, followed by Spain (61343 tons, accounting for 16.7%), Italy (54038 tons, accounting for 14.7%) and Germany (44925 tons, accounting for 12.2%).

Table 2 sales volume of pesticides in 28 EU countries in 2018 (by country; ton)

In addition, Eurostat also collected pesticide sales data from non EU member countries such as Turkey, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.

In 2018, the pesticide sales volume in Turkey was 59922.0 tons, an increase of 11.2% year-on-year, and all product types except "other products" achieved growth. Pesticide sales in Switzerland were 2019.6 tons, down 0.2% year-on-year. Although sales of herbicides and plant growth regulators increased, they were offset by sales of other product types.

In 2018, the pesticide sales volume in Norway was 620.3 tons, down 7.1% year on year. Although sales of pesticides and other product types in Norway increased significantly, their small base was not enough to offset the decline in sales of major product types. Iceland's pesticide sales fell 0.4% to 2.3 tons.

Table 3 sales volume of pesticides in several non EU countries in 2017-2018 (tons)