The impacts of chemical pesticides on the environment, including biodiversity, water, air and soil, and on human health, have become a major concern for civil society and consumers. They are also a major issue for the sustainability of agricultural systems. Recently, the Farm to Fork and Biodiversity European strategies set an ambitious target of reducing the use and risks of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030.

This foresight study aims to go one step further in terms of target and horizon by examining the feasibility of an efficient crop protection in a pesticide-free agriculture in Europe in 2050, and how a transition to such agriculture would be achievable and under which conditions such transition would be possible, what would be its impacts on production, land use, trade balance, greenhouse gas emissions?

To shed light on these issues, this foresight study was conducted as part of the French Priority Research Program (PRP) ‘Growing and Protecting crops Differently’ and in connection with the European Research Alliance ‘Towards a Chemical Pesticide-Free Agriculture’. It proposes three scenarios of chemical pesticide-free agriculture in Europe in 2050 and their transition pathways, the downscaling of the scenarios in four European regions, and the quantitative assessment of their impacts in Europe.