Denmark is an intensively cultivated agricultural country. Agriculture occupies 61 percent of the land area, cities and infrastructure 13 percent, production forests 13 percent. Only 12,5 percent is left for nature, and this nature is today strongly influenced by human activities.

Even after the implementation of the Green Tripartite, 50 percent of the country's land area will be occupied by agriculture. 88 percent of the agricultural area is conventional, using pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

It affects biodiversity on land and, via discharges into watercourses and via these into lakes and the sea, also deteriorates biodiversity in water. There is a lack of recent Danish research into how pesticides affect biodiversity, including the extent to which they also penetrate natural areas.

We know:

• that pesticides and their breakdown products can be measured not only in soil - but also in rainwater,
• that the biomass of flying insects – many of which also function as effective pollinators for agriculture – has declined by 75 percent over 27 years even deep within protected German nature areas, in all likelihood as a result of the effects of pesticides from the surrounding farmland.
• that the number of birds associated with Danish agricultural landscapes has decreased by 60 percent over the last almost 50 years,
• that the number of yellow sparrows and partridges, which feed on a cocktail of weed seeds as well as insects and other invertebrates, and vipers, which mainly eat invertebrates, has decreased by 70 – 80 percent and is now falling by 5-9 percent per year,
• that resistance to the pesticides used is increasing in the target species they are directed against, and agents developed in response have often had serious environmental consequences, for example neonicotinoids, which destroy bees' ability to navigate, and the newer pesticides that break down into the eternal chemical TFA – one of the infamous PFAS compounds.
• that drift from herbicides used on fields can affect wild plants in surrounding areas.
• There are many reasons to conduct more research into alternatives to pesticides and into prevention and thus reduction of pesticide consumption. This includes the development of integrated pest management (so-called 'IPM'), where help is obtained from nature itself.

Use nature's little helpers instead of pesticides

One of the most obvious approaches that we have neglected is to use nature's own little helpers. This has shown promising results in the international scientific literature and is seen as one of the primary paths to more sustainable agriculture.

This requires the development and maintenance of ecological infrastructures in the agricultural landscape, which, combined with increased soil health, support ecosystem services, and where the ecological infrastructures function as breeding oases and dispersal routes for predatory beetles, pollinators and parasitic wasps, etc.

The intensification of Danish agriculture, where natural elements, windbreaks, field boundaries and field roads are disappearing, while fields are becoming larger, has removed many of the natural habitats for beneficial animals and pollinators in agricultural land.

Pollination is the way forward

Good pollination generally leads to increased yields, but also faster and more uniform ripening, which can mean reduced disease attack. French trials show that good pollination can lead to reduced pesticide use.

The Danish IPM effort to date has been characterized by isolated, short-term funded projects within, for example, crop rotation, monitoring of pests combined with spot spraying, and the use of non-chemical agents.

But it is questionable to what extent the principles have been integrated into general agricultural practice. The introduction of a tax return form for agriculture does not provide the answer, as the tax return is not checked, nor are the results collected anywhere.

More funds are needed

In addition, an approach such as ecological infrastructure cannot even be reported in the tax return, and the continued development of resistance combined with the failure to meet the pesticide strategy's reduction targets indicates that IPM principles are far from widespread.

Finally, practical trials have been conducted on four demonstration farms, where several of the IPM principles are being tested – but none of the four farms include the development of organic infrastructure or biological methods for reducing harmful organisms. And since 2022, only one of the farms has met the reduction targets in the current pesticide strategy each year.

We therefore propose that research funds be allocated to:

• Much more thorough studies of the effects on non-target species on and outside agricultural areas of both approved pesticides and new ones that are being sought for approval. This applies – in addition to non-target species in, for example, watercourses and lakes and adjacent natural areas – to a particular extent to effects on organisms that:
  • performs pollination,
  • performs biological control of the very organisms being sprayed against,
  • benefits plant nutrient uptake and soil health in general
• through full-scale trials under Danish conditions to understand and develop the use of ecological infrastructures in agricultural landscapes in efforts to partly increase the functional biodiversity in the open countryside in general, and partly to specifically promote the populations of pollinators and organisms that can provide biological control of pests.
• to develop methods to limit the use of pesticides specifically to those places where pests can be detected, and generally to minimize the spread of pesticides and their degradation products to the surrounding environment.
• to improve and optimize warning systems for the emergence of pests, including also including forecasts for the development of biological control agents, which could otherwise limit the emergence, but which are eradicated by premature spraying.

Such research could be used both to reduce pesticide consumption in conventional agriculture and to prevent pests in organic agriculture.

This debate post was published on February 24, 2026 in Sustain Report, and was written by Christian Ege from the Green Transition Denmark, Henrik Wejdling from the Danish Ornithological Association and Rune Havgaard Sørensen from the Danish Beekeepers' Association.