Spraying pesticides can harm both biodiversity and human health. For example, we have seen a decline of over 75 percent in insects in nature conservation areas in recent decades, and here the use of pesticides plays a significant role, as they move significantly with the wind away from the fields.

Human health is also affected. Pesticide residues are already found in over half of Denmark's drilling. A new study from Cambridge University in England shows simultaneouslythat consuming food sprayed with pesticides can harm our beneficial gut bacteria.

Now there is much evidence that we are weakening the protection that is supposed to prevent pollution from growing.. The European Commission has issued its so-called food and feed safety omnibus. It is being sold as a technical simplification. The initiative promises less bureaucracy, faster processes and a better framework for innovation. But it is a significant deregulation that risks weakening the protection of both the environment and human health. The proposal significantly weakens EU pesticide legislation and undermines the protection of human health, the environment and drinking water from harmful pesticides.

Today, pesticides must be continuously re-evaluated based on new knowledge. It is through this that a number of harmful substances have been discovered and banned. Substances that were previously considered safe. The omnibus proposal turns this logic on its head.

This proposes that pesticides should be approved without a time limit. This shifts the burden of proof: Instead of producers having to document safety on an ongoing basis, it will be the responsibility of the authorities to detect problems. In practice, this will often happen long after the damage has occurred. The consequence is obvious: Dangerous substances risk remaining on the market for decades.

The proposal also involves longer transitional phases, during which already banned pesticides may still be used. In some cases up to three years, even when there is a documented risk to health and the environment. This is a fundamental departure from the precautionary principle that has been the cornerstone of EU pesticide legislation since the adoption of the Pesticides Regulation in 2011.

A Trojan horse for pesticides

The debate about PFAS substances, also known as eternal chemicals, has already revealed how bad things can go when regulation lags behind reality.

In Denmark, PFAS have been found in soil, water and humans. The consequences are long-term, as the substances remain in the environment for a very long time and can cause irreparable damage. At the same time, most PFAS pesticides break down into the harmful substance TFA, which has been detected in many Danish drinking water wells. This is precisely why it is problematic that the EU is now proposing a model where pesticides are less likely to be re-evaluated on an ongoing basis, and where new knowledge has a harder time making its way through approval processes.

The experience with PFAS speaks for itself. We often recognize the problems too late, so the challenges in terms of cleanup and environmental and health impacts become insurmountable. Therefore, ongoing reassessment is not bureaucracy – it is protection. The Commission claims that the reform should promote access to biological control agents as a sustainable alternative to synthetic pesticides and push agriculture towards more environmentally friendly plant protection.

This may be positive, but a broad and unclear definition of what biological control agents actually are can open a backdoor where safety standards are weakened rather than strengthened.

In practice, this means that synthetically produced substances can potentially be classified as a biological control agent if they are simply assessed as 'functionally identical' to natural substances. As these substances are considered to be less risky, the existing requirements for registration and documentation of the use of biological control agents will be removed. In other words: If a laboratory product behaves as if it were a natural product, the requirements for it are relaxed.

The goal of the EU's green policy is to strengthen the transition to a less pesticide-dependent agriculture. However, this proposal risks acting as a Trojan horse for the deregulation of conventional pesticides, thereby contributing to maintaining and reinforcing chemical dependence in agriculture.

Denmark risks losing the opportunity to act on new knowledge

In the election campaign here, many parties have advocated for better protection of groundwater and less pesticide pollution – and with good reason. Clean drinking water is one of the most fundamental political tasks in Denmark, where we are almost 100 percent dependent on our groundwater.

The proposal to simplify feed and food safety rules is based on a very restrictive interpretation of what constitutes the latest scientific and technical knowledge for product authorisations. Member States would be obliged to base their national authorisations on the latest assessment of the active substance carried out at EU level, rather than taking into account all the latest scientific evidence.

For example has The Environmental Protection Agency In 2025, six active substances and thus 33 pesticides will be subject to reassessment based on research projects and other professional knowledge, including from ongoing EU assessments. If the omnibus proposal is adopted, Denmark will not be able to ban substances such as PFAS pesticides on this basis.

It directly contradicts newer decisions from the European Court of Justice, which has just stated that the latest knowledge must be included. We are increasingly learning about the effects of pesticides on biodiversity and human health. This is therefore a step in the completely wrong direction.

Denmark should actively oppose the omnibus proposal

If we in Denmark want strict pesticide legislation, it may become more difficult if the Omnibus proposal is adopted. Denmark should therefore reject the EU's omnibus proposal for feed and food safety. Groundwater protection must be taken seriously. The government, the Danish Parliament and members of the European Parliament must engage much more aggressively in the negotiations.

A future Danish government should actively oppose any weakening of the requirements for risk assessment and approval of pesticides and insist that the precautionary principle remains the foundation of pesticide legislation.

We must prevent the erosion of the hard-won safeguards in the EU Regulation on the placing of pesticides on the market, which are designed to address the inherent toxic properties of pesticides. And we must ensure a high level of protection for the environment and human and animal health. At the same time, the government should promote sustainable alternatives to chemical agriculture and support farmers in the transition to practices that protect both groundwater, biodiversity and public health.

This opinion piece was published in Dagbladet Information on March 30, 2026, and was written by Emilie Ellesøe and Christian Ege.

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.

In just a few weeks, Bovaer has gone from being one of agriculture's most important climate measures to a substance that milk producers are now opting out of. The chairman of the National Association of Danish Milk Producers, Kjartan Poulsen, estimates that "almost 100 percent will stop using the substance" after the new clarification from the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, which gives farmers ample opportunities to exempt their cows from the legal requirement.

But when dairy farmers stop using Bovaer, the expected climate impact will also disappear from agriculture's climate accounts. A full 400.000 tons of CO₂ reduction in the green tripartite agreement comes from methane-reducing feed additives, and that figure will now apparently have to be waved goodbye.

The editor-in-chief of Maskinbladet, Rasmus Dalsgaard, calls it in a leader a “scandal” and “… one-eyed haste in the holy name of the climate”.

Agricultural organizations have put Bovaer in the spotlight as a technological fix with a quick and measurable effect on methane emissions. But the reality in the barns tells a different story. Many farmers have experienced dairy cows with reduced appetite, falling milk yield, metabolic-like problems and in some cases collapse. This was exactly what experts – and the Danish Animal Welfare Association – had already warned about before the legal requirement was passed.

Now green organizations stand side by side with milk producers to raise awareness about the legal requirement.

When farmers are now stopping Bova on a large scale, it is not because they are reluctant to take action on climate change. It is because the animals are paying the price. But the question is how the government is now going to find the big CO₂-reductions?

Fortunately, it's not so bad that it's not good for anything. With Bovaer, agriculture was given the opportunity to do more. business as usual, because it could supposedly reduce the cow's methane emissions by up to 27 percent. On the other hand, it would also be moving down a path that does not lead to climate neutrality. Simply because there is no incentive to reduce the number of animals.

The industry is quick to say that the number of cows is decreasing year by year. And it is true that we have had slightly fewer cows, but the decrease is nowhere near enough. We need a significant decrease if it is to make a real difference in methane emissions.

Denmark needs climate measures that are both responsible and sustainable, and that do not compromise animal welfare. Bovaer was not the miracle cure that people had hoped for, so let's use measures that work. We must let the cow be a cow that eats grass and chews cud.

We don't need to change the cow, but change the entire system around it. To a system where the animals contribute to a positive eco- and food system.

This opinion piece was published in Jyllandsposten on December 13, 2025, and was written by Britta Riis, Animal Protection, Maria Reumert Gjerding, Danish Nature Conservation Society, Jeppe Juul, Green Transition Denmark & Christian Fromberg, Greenpeace.

Four different farmers' associations think in a post to the Althingi that we are wrong when we, in a previous post advocates for targeted nitrogen regulation, which will mean that the fields that pollute the most are also the fields that have the greatest requirements for nitrogen reduction.

In the tripartite agreement "Agreement on a Green Denmark", the new stricter requirements for agricultural nitrogen emissions are otherwise described as "targeted regulation" that is intended to "provide a major incentive for removal". But now local agricultural organizations believe the opposite – that regulation should not be targeted. We'll leave that aside for a moment.

The four debaters also write that their model is more “fair.” But the question is: fair for whom – and how?

Because yes, a targeted model hits some harder than others. It's in the name. Those who pollute the most must contribute the most. The farmers' associations' model, on the other hand, means that we all pay the same in taxes regardless of income. It may sound simple, but try explaining to the low-wage earner why they should pay the same as the billionaire. It's simply not fair.

Distribution between state and business

It's a bit the same here: Why should farmers on the most vulnerable soils have the same nitrogen quota as those on robust land? Where's the fairness in that? And when we talk about fairness, it's not just about the neighbor, but about the distribution between state and business.

The state, i.e. the taxpayers, has already paid 43 billion kroner for agriculture to take the most problematic lands out of operation, so that our distressed marine environment can get a much-needed break and get more nature for the money.

One could easily argue that the nitrogen requirements should be implemented as so-called compensation-free regulation, where the polluter must bear the costs of stopping the pollution, as is known from the vast majority of other industries in Denmark. This was also the case with the previously reduced nitrogen standards for agriculture, which were removed with the agricultural package in 2015, which switched to a so-called "polluter pays" model.

The most robust soils

Now a historic green tripartite agreement has been decided, where 400.000 hectares of agricultural land will be converted into forest and nature. As mentioned, the state has allocated 43 billion tax kroner, but nitrogen regulation must provide the final push so that we can once and for all reclaim agricultural land for the benefit of biodiversity, the marine environment and Danish citizens.

But what the farmers' associations are actually proposing is that the state should pay even more money to agriculture to cover up the fact that it does not want to regulate where the problems are greatest. And then there is the argument about food production. The farmers' associations write that "agriculture must continue to be able to produce and export food and thus have strong production that is profitable and contributes to jobs in dairies and slaughterhouses."

But there is something here that they must have misunderstood. Because in the targeted nitrogen regulation we propose, it is precisely the most robust soils that are affected the least – that is, precisely where it makes the most sense to produce food. In the farmers' associations' own model, on the other hand, it is the robust soils that take the biggest hit. In other words, they make it less attractive to grow where food production is actually most appropriate from a socio-economic perspective.

Let's get one thing straight.

And let's get one thing straight: If we really want to create new jobs, exports, and enough food to feed more people, according to the researchers, it requires investments in plant-based foods, not more dairies and slaughterhouses.

According to Christian Bugge Henriksen, associate professor at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark can create 9.000 to 27.000 new jobs if we just manage to occupy one to three percent of the global plant-based market. At the same time, it will enable us to produce far more meals per hectare than we do today, where 80 percent of agricultural land is used to grow animal feed. It is a system that is neither area-efficient, future-proof, nor contributes to food supply security.

So when the farmers' associations talk about green tripartite, fairness and honesty, one could wish for a little honesty in return. Because if you really don't believe that the goals of the tripartite should be achieved, then feel free to say so straight away. Because with their model, it will simply be impossible within the framework of the green tripartite. And if we are to borrow the debaters' own rhetoric again, one could ask:

Is it really "fair" that the rest of society has to pay for people to continue to pollute - despite the fact that they themselves have signed a pledge not to do so?

This debate paper was presented in the Althing on November 24 and was written by Trine Langhede, Green Transition Denmark, Anna Bak Jäpelt, Danish Nature Conservation Association, Christian Fromberg, Greenpeace, Torben Hansen, Danish Sport Fishing Association and Thomas Kirk Sørensen, WWF World Wildlife Fund.