National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products.

The Revision of the National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products (PANUSPF) aims to reinforce preventive crop protection measures, increasing integrated pest management and production practices, promoting innovative and competitive agriculture and silviculture to slow the decline of the rural population and generate employment while at the same time protecting the natural environment, water resources and the diversity of fauna and flora. The aim is also to promote a series of measures to help increase food self-sufficiency in Portugal, reducing the dependence on external sources for the basic components of national diet, and combining plant protection with integrated policies to protect the soil, water and living organisms, particularly pollinating insects. This revised plan, to be implemented over the next five years, continues to focus on training for users of plant protection products, but also aspires to increase levels of knowledge among the general public about the process of producing high quality food safely, called Communicating Agriculture 'Comunicando Agricultura'.
The main goal is to reinforce integrated pest management measures, update and promote knowledge and disseminate best agricultural practice in the interests of improving plant protection in a manner that respects the environment and corresponds to consumer demands, enhancing control, surveillance and monitoring programmes for pesticide residues in foodstuffs, acquired resistance and acute and chronic effects derived from the use of plant protection products. A number of public bodies and private organisations will be involved in the implementation of this Plan, but the determining factor will be the commitment and know-how of those who feed humanity: the farmers themselves.
This document presents the operational component of the National Action Plan (Revision 1) for the five-year period 2018–2023, which draws on the report on the implementation of the first National Action Plan for the Sustainable Use of Plant Protection Products for the five-year period 2013–2018. This revised National Action Plan for 2018–2023 largely maintains the areas and objectives set out in Law No 26/2013, which regulates the distribution, sale and application of plant protection products for professional use and their adjuvants and defines procedures for monitoring the use of such products, as amended by Decree-Law No 35/2017 of 31 July 2017 and Decree-Law No 86/2010 of 15 June 2010 establishing the mandatory inspection scheme governing application equipment for plant protection products authorized for professional use, both of which transpose Directive 2009/128/EC into national law. This Revision of the National Action Plan aims to carry on implementing the the continuity measures started during the lifespan of the first PANUSPF and to include objectives of maintaining high levels of human and environmental protection against potential risks associated with plant protection products while taking account of the economic viability and sustainability of agricultural production and effective pest control.