Over the past decades, agriculture has become increasingly dependent on the use of herbicides and of pesticides. While they have contributed to boosting yields, herbicides can have negative effects on the environment, on biodiversity and also on human health. Therefore, the EU has more recently created policies which seek non-chemical weed management techniques which can reduce the impact of herbicides on environment and human health while at the same time safeguarding the competitiveness of agriculture in the EU. These techniques include crop rotation, mechanical weed control, use of alternatives to critical active substances.  

Between 2018 and 2019, the 20 experts (farmers, advisers, researchers…) from different geographic regions of Europe worked together within an EIP-AGRI Focus Group to discuss the challenges and opportunities for the implementation of non-chemical weed management practices in arable cropping systems in the EU. The results of their work have been presented in their final report, with ideas and solutions divided into the following topics: Redesigning cropping systems, precision non-chemical weed control, weed biology, farmers’ perceptions and decision-making and suppressive and tolerant varieties/crops.