Agriculture St. Gallen initiative against new reporting tool for plant protection products
The three cantonal parliamentary groups in the St. Gallen cantonal council want to stop the introduction of an online reporting tool for pesticides with the federal government. There is also opposition from the farmers' association. The federal government has already postponed the launch.
27.06.2024, 15:22
SDA
In 2021, the federal parliament decided to make the use of plant protection products subject to mandatory reporting. The requirement is part of a parliamentary initiative which, among other things, aims to at least halve the use of pesticides by 2027.
An online platform called Digiflux has been developed for implementation. In future, farms and garden centers will have to make an entry there if they use pesticides.
There is opposition to the introduction of Digiflux, which has already been postponed until 2027 - including from the canton of St. Gallen. The FDP, Center-EPP and SVP parliamentary groups want to stop the platform with a state initiative. According to the initiative, it is "purely a control and monitoring instrument".
In future, every application of a plant protection product would have to be reported in Digiflux "on a parcel-by-parcel and geo-referenced basis". This would cause a massive administrative burden "as well as additional costs without ecological added value", it continues.
Abolish the reporting obligation altogether
The three parliamentary groups want to abolish the reporting requirement for the use of plant protection products altogether. Specifically, they are calling on the federal government to change the framework conditions so that "only the intended use must be noted by the trade".
There is similar criticism from the Swiss Farmers' Association. Digiflux cannot be implemented in this way, they say. The federal government is overshooting the mark by far. The initiative will be discussed in the St. Gallen cantonal council in one of the upcoming sessions.
