Use of pesticides

Statistics Estonia

Economic and Environmental Statistics Department

Swen Peterson

Leading Analyst

Tatari 51, 10134 Tallinn, Estonia

swen.peterson [at] stat.ee

372 5886 4227

06/03/2026

06/03/2026

Used quantities of pesticides and treated area by crop.

Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2;

Classification of Use of Agricultural Land.

The surveyed agricultural crops are classified as follows:

- cereals (wheat, rye, barley, triticale, oats, mixed cereals, buckwheat);

- legumes (field peas, field beans, other legumes);

- industrial crops (oil flax, rape and turnip rape, other industrial crops);

- open-field vegetables (cabbages, cucumbers, red beets, carrots, onions, garlic, green peas, swedes, other open-field vegetables);

- vegetables under glass (cucumbers, tomatoes, other vegetables under glass);

- potatoes;

- fruit and berry plantations (apples and pears, plums, cherries, red and white currants, blackcurrants, gooseberries, raspberries, strawberries, sea-buckthorn, other fruit and berries);

- nurseries (ligneous plants, fruit trees, berry bushes or ornamental young plants grown in the open air for subsequent transplantation, except non-commercial nurseries of forest trees in woods);

- flowers and ornamental plants (flowers and ornamental plants grown outdoors and under glass);

- fodder roots (excluding seeds);

- annual forage crops (maize, other annual forage crops);

- multiannual forage crops (clover, lucerne, other legumes, other temporary grassland);

- forage crops for seed;

- permanent grassland (land not included in the crop rotation system, used for the permanent production (five years or longer) of green forage crops, whether sown or self-seeded and whether used for grazing or for harvesting as hay or silage, or only maintained in good agricultural and environmental condition).

The classification used for pesticides corresponds to Annex III of Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council.

Agricultural holdings;

agricultural small units.

Agricultural land – used agricultural land, i.e. land under planted and harvested crops (field crops, greenhouse crops, fruit and berry plantations, nurseries, natural grasslands, orchards, vegetable gardens, and fallow land)

Area treated with pesticide – the part of sown area, which has been treated with one or more pesticides at the same time or at different growth phases one or more times; if the pesticide was used to treat seeds, then the area where the seeds have been used is calculated. None of the treated areas should be larger than the sown area.

Basic area treated (ha) – the area of crop which was treated with a given active substance, irrespective of the number of times that the substance was applied to that area. For example, if a ten-hectare wheat field is treated with an active substance twice, the basic area treated with that active substance is 10 hectares.

Desiccants – herbicides; desiccants are used to dry up leaves and weed

Fungicides – used to defeat fungi and viral diseases (here are also seed treatment preparations)

Growth regulators – used to prevent or control internodes stretch

Herbicides – used to kill weeds

Insecticides – used to kill insects (here are also seed treatment preparations)

Molluscicides – used to kill molluscs (snails, slugs, mussels, etc.)

Seed treatment preparations – chemical with which seeds are treated prior to planting to prevent them from seed-borne or soil-borne pathogenic organisms and storage insects

Sown area – area that has been sown at the time of reporting year, including the sown areas maintained from the last years. If the cereals were sown to get the green fodder, then the sown area is shown according to its real usage.

The amount of pesticide – the amount of pesticide formulation used to treat plants one or more times

Agricultural holding

Agricultural holdings who use pesticides.

FRAME

List of agricultural holdings where there is at least:

- 5 hectares of utilized agricultural area or;

- 2 hectares of arable land or;

- 0.5 hectares of potatoes or;

- 0.5 hectares of vegetables and strawberries or;

- 0.2 hectares of aromatic and medicinal plants and herbs, flowers, seeds, nurseries or;

- 0.3 hectares of fruit and berry plantations, other permanent crops (except nurseries) or;

- 100 m2 of greenhouses.

The list is generated from the statistical register of agricultural holdings.

Estonia as a whole

2013, 2014, 2015, 2020

Not applicable

Quantity of plant protection formulation – kilogram (kg);

area treated with plant protection product – hectare (ha)

Year

DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS

Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 concerning statistics on pesticides

Regulation (EU) No 1264/2014 of 26 November 2014 amending Regulation (EU) No 408/2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards transmission format

Commission Regulation (EU) No 656/2011 of 7 July 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards definitions and list of active substances (Text with EEA relevance)

COMMISSION REGULATION (EU) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 amending Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards the list of active substances

OTHER LEGAL ACTS

Commission Regulation (EU) No 408/2011 of 27 April 2011 implementing Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides, as regards transmission format (Text with EEA relevance)

OTHER AGREEMENTS

Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO)

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 34, § 35 of the Official Statistics Act.

The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here: Data protection (Privacy policy).

Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. On 1 October each year, the release times of the Statistical Database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications are announced in the release calendar (in case of publications – the release month).

Calendar

All users have been granted an equal access to official statistics: this means that the dissemination dates of official statistics have to be announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) can have access to the official statistics (results of official statistical surveys) before other users. Statistical information is first published in the Statistical Database. In case a news release is published based on the same data, the information provided in the relevant news release is simultaneously published in the Statistical Database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8.00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calender.

Until 2015, data were released annually. Since 2015, data have been published every five years (data for 2015 and 2020 have been published in Estonia). In accordance with the regulation on statistics on agricultural input and output, which applies from 1 January 2025, Member States are required to produce data on the use of plant protection products in agriculture starting from 2029 (for reference year 2028). Pursuant to the implementing regulation, as an exception, data on the use of plant protection products in agriculture for reference year 2026 shall be produced in 2027.

Not published

Not published

Data are published in the at statistical database under the subject area Environment / Agri-environmental indicators in the following tables:

KK208: Use of pesticides in agricultural holdings;

KK2081: Quantity of pesticides used and the basic area treated in agricultural holdings by active substance and crop;

KK2082: Use of pesticides in agricultural holdings by county and crop.

The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act.

Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes.

Not published

A common methodology for the collection of pesticide usage statistics within agriculture and horticulture, Eurostat (2008)

In 2020, in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 concerning statistics on pesticides, data on the five-year period were submitted to Eurostat, together with a quality report that can be found on the Eurostat metadata web page Pesticide use in agriculture.

To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the EFQM Excellence Model and the requirements in section 7 “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act.

Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process (this information includes, among other things, feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees). This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions.

Ministry of Climate;

Ministry of Regional Affairs and Agriculture;

Agriculture and Food Board;

Agricultural Research Centre;

Estonian University of Life Sciences

Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys.

In compliance with the rules (regulations).

The accuracy of source data may sometimes be low; it is checked by comparing different data sources. The type of survey and the data collection methods should ensure sufficient coverage.

Not calculated

Not measured

The data are released 161 days upon the end of the reference year (T + 161 days).

The data have been published at the time announced in the release calender.

The use of an internationally harmonized methodology, based on the European Union Regulation on pesticide statistics, allows for cross-country comparisons of published data.

The data are comparable over time since 2013, as the methodology and basic principles, definitions and classifications have remained the same over time.

The data are linked to agricultural statistics in the field of crop production and in compliance with the statistical activity 10503 “Sales of pesticides”.

The outputs of the statistical activity are coherent.

Costs are not calculated separately for different statistical activities.

The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described on Statistics Estonia's website in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics.

The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, if errors are discovered, if new or better data become available.

SURVEY DATA

Total population in 2020 was 11,102 objects. The crop farming sample size was 1,555. The total population of holdings includes all active holdings from the statistical register of agricultural holdings. The samples are stratified by standard output groups. All holdings with a standard output of at least 200,000 euros are covered; for other holdings, stratified simple random sampling is used.

ADMINISTRATIVE DATA

Areas of crops were prefilled on the basis of the Estonian Agricultural Registers and Information Board (ARIB) data.

DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES

Data from statistical activity 21214 „Crop farming” are used.

Over five years

Data are collected and the submission of questionnaires is monitored through a web-based data submission self-service environment. The questionnaires have been designed for independent completion in the self-service environment and include instructions and controls. The questionnaires and information about data submission are available on Statistics Estonia's website in the section Questionnaires.

Data are collected with the annual official statistics questionnaire „Crop farming and Grasslands Maintenance”

Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with the data of previous periods.

In 2020, model-based calculation was used. The calculations were based on data from a set of sample agricultural holdings, which we call panel data. The panel was formed from the agricultural holdings that submitted data for the survey on the use of plant protection products. The data on the use of pesticides are collected as one module of the Crop Statistics Survey. For the sample agricultural holdings, the following data were available: economic size (standard output), crop area, and quantities of plant protection products used on different crops. The data of the panel were used for grossing up to the entire Estonian crop production. On the basis of the holdings belonging to the panel, a coefficient was found that related the total use of plant protection products and the total economic size of crop production. The obtained coefficient was applied to the total economic size of crop production in the whole country to find the total amount of plant protection products used in Estonia. The use of plant protection products by active substances and crops was found on the basis of the respective distributions of agricultural holdings in the panel.

Not applicable

In accordance with Regulation (EU) 2022/2379 of the European Parliament and of the Council on statistics on agricultural input and output, which applies from 1 January 2025, Member States shall produce statistics on the use of plant protection products in agriculture annually starting from 1 January 2028. As an exception, statistics on the use of plant protection products in agriculture for reference year 2026 shall be produced in the period 2025–2027, in accordance with Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2023/1537.