Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL)

Department Plant Protection Products

Bundesallee  51
38116 Braunschweig / Germany

See sub-concepts below.

The data set comprises the annual sales of active substances contained in plant protection products (PPP) placed on the domestic market for one calendar year according to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/2010 of 17 November 2021 as regards the list of active substances.

Article 64 of the German Plant Protection Act (Pflanzenschutzgesetz - PflSchG).

Please see more information at this website. (only in German).

Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL).

2012.

All variables required under EU regulation are covered.

The amounts of plant protection products placed on the domestic market for experiments, tests or trials for research or development purposes according to Article 54 of Regulation (EC) No. 1107/2009 are not covered. The legal basis for this is Article 64 (1) sentence 4 of the German Plant Protection Act. In the year 2022, the amount of plant protection products placed on the market for experiments, tests or trials was less than 0,03% of the total amount of plant protection products placed on the market.

The data are expressed in kilograms of active substances. See also sub-concept 3.4 Data validation.

The classification of the active substances in plant protection products is annexed (Annex III) to Commission Regulation (EU) 2021/2010 of 17 November 2021 amending Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning statistics on pesticides.

The active substances are classified according to chemical and functional similarity. Aggregation levels in descending order comprise: major groups, categories of products, chemical classes and active substances.

The statistics cover the wholesale and retail trade sector operating in placing plant protection products on the market.

All authorisation holders of plant protection products, as well as all holders of parallel trade permits, report the quantity of all plant protection products and the active substances contained therein that are placed on the domestic market (including imports) and the respective quantities exported.

This data collection comprises pesticide sales data based on the term 'placing on the market' as defined in Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 concerning the placing of plant protection products on the market. The scope of the Regulation covers plant protection products and their active substances as can be seen from the key terms of the act immediately below:

Plant protection products: products consisting of or containing active substances, safeners or synergists, and intended for one of the following uses:

• protecting plants or plant products against all harmful organisms or preventing the action of such organisms, unless the main purpose of these products is considered to be for reasons of hygiene rather than for the protection of plants or plant products;
• influencing the life processes of plants, such as substances influencing their growth, other than as a nutrient;
• preserving plant products, in so far as such substances or products are not subject to special Community provisions on preservatives;
• destroying undesired plants or parts of plants, except algae unless the products are applied on soil or water to protect plants;
• checking or preventing undesired growth of plants, except algae.

Active substances: substances or micro-organisms, including viruses, having general or specific action against harmful organisms or on plants, parts of plants or plant products.

Quantity: implies kilograms of the active substances sold.

Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishes a common framework for the systematic production of Community statistics on the placing on the market and agricultural use of those pesticides which are plant protection products as defined in Article 2 (a)(i). The statistics shall apply to the annual amounts of pesticides active substances placed on the market in accordance with Annex I and the quantity of active substances shall be aggregated according to the list in Annex III (as amended).

Enterprise placing plant protection products on the market; authorisation holder or holder of parallel trade permits.

All enterprises placing plant protection products on the market; authorisation holders and holders of parallel trade permits.

See sub-concepts below.

The entire territory of the country.

Büsingen am Hochrhein - Helgoland.

2011 onwards.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because it is not based on an index number of time series.

See sub-concepts below.

Not applicable.

Standard forms for reporting domestic sales are provided on the BVL website. As a reminder service to their reporting duty, the BVL distributes individual forms to all authorisation holders and holders of a parallel trade permit in each year in mid-January. Each company receives a list of plant protection products for which they have been the holder of an authorisation or a parallel trade permit which had been valid for at least one day within the reporting year. The companies complete the tables with the quantities of domestic sales of each plant protection product and the active substance(s) it contains (including the amounts placed on the market for emergency situations according to Article 53 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009), and send the tables back to the BVL. The national legal deadline is 31 March each year for the data from the previous year. Companies can send back their sales report by their preferred means: by paper post, fax or email. The BVL will establish a possibility to submit the reports via the existing BVL applicants' portal for plant protection products.

Annually.

See sections 3.1.1. - 3.1.3..  In addition, sales values of PPPs placed on the market only for emergency situations according to Article 53 of Regulation (EC) No 1107/2009 are requested from the authorisation holders.

During manual entry of the data into the BVL database, it is checked whether the reporting unit of the amount of PPPs and their active substances is in kg or in litres. The amount of active substance is double-checked against the active substance content and the density of the product. These properties stored in the database are based on information submitted during the application process. In case of doubt, the reporting company is contacted. If inconsistencies still cannot be removed, the amount of active substance as calculated by the BVL database is used for further processing. This is then noted in a commenting field in the database. An automatic consistency check during data entry issues a warning if the amount for a given PPP is above or below one order of magnitude compared to the previous year. After data entry is completed for all companies, a check for duplicate values of the same PPP reported by different companies is made. In addition, an aggregate table is compiled to compare the total sales for each active substance and company to the previous year. Major deviations in this table are checked for plausibility manually. If necessary, the reporting company is contacted to clarify inconsistencies. All values in the aggregate tables compiled for the BVL report are compared to values from the previous year(s).

Computation of aggregates

Sales data from the reporting companies is summed up by individual active substance. In addition, the sales amounts for active substances are aggregated by the hierarchical categories "chemical class", "product category" and "major group" according to the latest version of Annex III to Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009. Negative sales values (withdrawals from the market) are included in the sum for the active substance of the reporting year. In most cases, this does not result in an overall negative sales value for an active substance or an aggregate.

Conversion of unit

During manual entry of the data into the BVL's database, it is checked whether the the amount of plant protection products and their active substances is reported in kg or in litres. Only amounts in kg are entered into the database. Amounts reported in litres are converted into kg.

In the case of liquid formulations of plant protection products, the content of active substance is usually specified in g/L. Therefore, calculations should consider the density of the product.

Example: product volume = 650 L, content of active substance = 480 g/L, density = 1,2 g/cm³;
then:
product mass (kg) = product volume * density = 650 * 1,2 = 780 kg
mass of active substance (kg) = product volume * (content of active substance / 1000) = 650 * (480/1000) = 312 kg

The density of an authorised plant protection product and its active substance content are available in the BVL's database because they have been submitted during the application process of the plant protection product. The product densities are also published on the BVL website.

The amount of active substance is always based on the content of the pure, not the technical active substance, and on the parent or principal structure, not on the variant. If inconsistencies between the reported values and the values calculated by the BVL's database cannot be clarified with the reporting companies, the data reported on the sales amount of products is considered to be more reliable than data reported on the sales amount of active substances. In these cases, the amount of active substance is then calculated from the values in the BVL's database to ensure internal coherence. This is then noted in a commenting field for the product-specific data set.

Imputation, outlier detection and weighting/adjustment for non-response are not applicable.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on time series.

The process of data collection, processing and distribution is laid down in the BVL's internal quality management documents (only available in German). Since 2012, the BVL is certified according to ISO 9001. This includes internal self-assessments ("audits") by different units of the BVL at regular intervals, and external audits by a certification body. The BVL's internal quality management documents are in principle not available to the public.

Overall accuracy of the data is considered satisfactory, although non-response might potentially be a problem. This is mainly due to incorrect contact details, especially of parallel trade companies. Under-coverage due to illegal trade cannot be estimated. See also sub-concepts 6.3.3.1 and 6.3.3.2.

The BVL uses the sales data for internal post-registration monitoring tasks. Several summary tables from the BVL's yearly report are also published in the German Statistical Yearbook on Food, Agriculture and Forestry and in the Federal Gazette ("Bundesanzeiger"). Authorities of the German Federal States ("Länder") are responsible for monitoring the placing on the market of plant protection products. These authorities are provided with the sales amounts of all individual plant protection products and active substances for internal use only. The Julius Kühn Institut (JKI), Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, also receives this data. Other authorities, e.g. the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) or research institutions, but also the general public can retrieve substance-specific sales data since 1987 on the BVL website; "sales quantities of active substances...". Pursuant to a decision of the administrative court of Braunschweig on 28 March 2019, sales data of individual active substances in plant protection products are no longer treated as confidential business information.

Separate sales data for each of the German "Länder" is sometimes requested from the BVL by authorities, members of the public, researchers or non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Since the sales data is not collected from individual points of sale, but from authorisation holders, and since the location of the head office of an authorisation holder is not necessarily identical with the various points of sale, sales data with a higher spatial resolution is not available.

There are no methods in place to determine user satisfaction systematically. As fas as the BVL is aware, most needs from users of the sales statistics can be fulfilled. For exceptions see sub-concept 5.1.

The data collection covers all active substances of plant protection products placed on the national market. It covers the information of all authorisation holders and holders of parallel trade permits. For exceptions see sub-concepts 6.3.3.1 and 6.3.3.2.

99,48%.

See sub-concepts below.

Errors resulting from over-coverage are minimized by duplicate checks (see sub-concept 6.3.1.1). Plausibility checks are used to reduce measurement errors (see sub-concept 3.4). Data validation by comparison of sales data with other sources was made until 2011. As of 2011, a comparison has no longer been possible, since the relevant industry association no longer collects sales data in terms of kg of products or active substances from its member companies. Besides, not all authorisation holders are members of an industry association.

Occasionally, the data providers retrospectively correct the sales amounts of individual plant protection products and the active substances therein, also for previous reporting years. Depending on the magnitude of these changes, corrected sales data is sent to Eurostat and other data recipients. The BVL's summary report is also corrected. The reasons for the correction are highlighted in the introduction of the report.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on samples, but covers the whole statistical population of authorisation holders and plant protection products placed on the national market.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on samples, but covers the whole statistical population of authorisation holders and plant protection products placed on the national market.

See sub-concepts below.

To minimise undercoverage, all companies or persons liable to reporting sales who do not respond are reminded by adequate means, e. g. emails, phone calls or reminding letters by post or by fax. If no contact can be established by these means (this has so far only been the case for parallel trade companies), the parallel trade permit for this person or company are invalidated, until the person or company provides up-to-date contact details and an excerpt from the commercial register to the BVL.

After a routine check for duplicate reports of all plant protection products, those double values are eliminated which may be due to reports from third parties, e. g. companies notifying sales of a product for which another company is the authorisation holder, and where the authorisation holder has also reported a sales amount for the same product. The reporting companies concerned are contacted in case of doubt.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics as the data stem from one administrative source.

This type of error is reduced by plausibility checks (comparison of sales amounts with previous years, taking into account the authorisation situation of the individual products) when entering the data and after calculation of the statistics. Dimensional errors (e. g. reporting unit in tonnes instead of kg) are most frequently corrected. If necessary, reporting companies are contacted to clarify such issues. The sales amount of an active substance is calculated from the sales amount of the plant protection products containing this substance using data on active substance content stored in the BVL's database. If the calculated value differs from the value reported by the company, and the discrepancy cannot be explained, the reporting company is contacted. In case of doubt, the value calculated from the BVL's data is used.

To avoid such errors, reporting companies are provided with detailed instructions/explanations on how to fill in their reporting forms (See this website).

Data has not been changed to correct for missing values, since the non-response rates of actual sales are negligible.
For details on unit and item non-response rates see sub-concepts 6.3.3.1 and 6.3.3.2.

Overall, 221 companies were responsible for reporting sales data for 2022. Of these, 155 were authorisation holders, 76 were holders of parallel trade permits, and 10 companies fell into both categories. Overall non-response rate was 2,7% (6 out of the 221 companies). All authorisation holders responded (unweighted non-response rate for this subgroup 0,0 %). Of the 66 parallel trade companies that were not authorisation holders, 6 companies did not respond. Unweighted non-response rate for holders of only parallel trade permits was thus 9,1 %. This non-reponse rate for 2022 seems high, but for 4 out of the 6 non-reposonders it is known from previous years that they do no longer place their products on the market. The parallel trade permits of the remaining 2 non-reponders, both from abroad, have been revoked because they have not responded to repeated efforts to contact them. It is thus assumed that the company no longer exists, until they can prove it, e.g. by sending a valid and up-to-date excerpt form the commercial register.

In previous years, it was assumed that the non-responding parallel trade companies did not sell any plant protection products in Germany for the following reasons:

• From a legal perspective, a notification only of non-sales is not mandatory, although the BVL asks for it in the notification letter to the companies.
• Most non-responding companies are holders of parallel import permits only, not of regular authorisations. Parallel trade permits are not only applied for in order to place a PPP on the market in Germany. They are also used as a kind of "quality certificate" for export into non-EU countries.
• Companies often apply for many parallel trade permits for the same reference product and only make use of individual permits if they can take advantage of actual price differences between EU Member States for a specific product. This assumption is supported by the difference in sales quota (number of authorised PPPs for which sales > 0 has been reported : total number of authorised PPPs). In 2020, the sales quota for authorised PPP was 58 %, whereas the sales quota for PPP with parallel trade permits was only 21 %. Sales quota is calculated every 3-5 years, as it does not vary much between years.
• Some parallel trade companies have terminated business operations without informing the BVL, so their parallel trade permits could not be revoked in time. Starting in 2015, as soon as the BVL has reasonable proof that a company cannot be contacted by post or email any more, all parallel trade permits of this company are revoked. It seems that this has improved item non-response rate in recent years.

In order to reduce non-response due to missing or outdated contact details, internet searches for non-responding companies are conducted. If a company does not respond, the notification letter for the following reporting year is sent by registered mail with return receipt, so outdated contact details can be detected. Sometimes, up-to-date contact details can be obtained from the consultants who handled the applications on behalf of the companies. If contact details are correct, reminder letters are sent to the companies, indicating the legal consequences of not reporting sales. So far, all non-responding companies are from abroad. Prosecution of such administrative offences outside Germany is difficult and time-consuming, was thus not considered appropriate and has not yet been initiated.

In the context of sales statistics on PPPs, an item is considered a report for the sales of an individual PPP from an individual respondent.

Overall item non-response rate for 2022 was 0,5%.

Item non-response rate based only on the PPP with a regular or emergency authorisation in 2022 was 0%.

Item non-response rate based only on the PPP with a parallel trade permit valid in 2022 was 0,9%. For discussion see sub-concept 6.3.3.1.

Together with the notification letter, the BVL provides companies with a tabular overview of PPPs which had been authorised or for which an import permit had been valid in the reporting year. The companies send back the tables completed with the sales amounts. Usually, zero-values (no sales) for specific products are not explicitly mentioned in the tables, only the amounts of PPPs for which sales had actually occurred. Such non-responses for particular items have always been interpreted as "no sales" (0 kg) for these items, as long as the company has reported sales for other PPPs in the reporting year.

Already during data entry, microdata (reported sales values) are frequently corrected, mostly because sales amounts had not been reported in kg as required, but in litres when the PPP is a liquid formulation. During further processing, aggregate values of active substance sales are compared to those of previous years. In case of major deviations, the data is traced back to individual items (PPPs). It is then decided case-by-case if the value is reliable (e. g. due to changes of the authorisation situation), or if the company is contacted to clarify if the value should be corrected.

0 % (no missing data has been replaced).

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is not based on estimations.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the reported data on plant protection products covers the whole year.

There are no routine revisions of the sales data.

Unplanned revisions may be necessary to correct mistakes, i. e. errors found in the data after release (see sub-concept 6.6). The most common cause for such a revision is that respondents sometimes correct their reported sales data, also for previous years. There are as yet no formal procedures in place in how to handle such revisions. When a mistake has been realised and corrected, a complete set of revised sales data is sent to Eurostat via EDAMIS as soon as possible. Eurostat is notified by email of the reason for the revision.

Main reasons for revisions are new source data (corrections of sales values by respondents), or correction of mistakes during processing/aggregation of sales values. Actions to prevent the need for such revisions in the future have been implemented, but will never be 100 % effective:

• When the respondents' sales data are entered into the database, an automatic warning message appears if the sales value of a plant protection product deviates from the values of the previous year by more than one order of magnitude. If there is no plausible explanation, the respondent is contacted for clarification.
• For important respondents, the sales values per active substance are compared manually to the previous reporting year. If there is no plausible explanation for major deviations, the respondent is contacted for clarification.

On average, there have been one to two revisions per reporting year since 2011.

According to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009, the data is published by Eurostat 15 months after the end of the reference year and the national quality report 20 months after the end of the reference year.

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics as the data and national quality reports are only published once in a final result.

• 15 months after the end of the reference period for the data;
• 20 months after the end of the reference period for the national quality report.

According to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009, data must be transmitted until 30 December of the year t+1, and national quality reports until 31 March of the year t+2.

Data have been delivered to Eurostat on time.

Not applicable.

Data are collected on a country level (NUTS 0). They are not comparable on a regional level. The geographical comparability between countries is evaluated by Eurostat.

Not applicable, because there are no mirror flows in pesticide sales statistics.

Since 2002, sales of parallel imports have been included in the sales statistics. However, parallel import permits were not mandatory until 2007. This is why the BVL was not able to notify all parallel importers of their reporting duty in the years before. Under-reporting of PPP sales from parallel trade is therefore likely for the years before 2007.

Since 2009, active substances have been classified and aggregated according to the Eurostat classification system (now Annex III of Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009). Data on sales of active substances on the aggregate levels of major groups, categories of products and chemical classes is therefore no longer comparable to previous years (break in time series).

Every 5 years, the classification in Annex III of Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 is revised. Some active substances are then allocated to groups different from the previous 5-year-period. This may potentially decrease comparability over larger time periods. After the revision of Annex III in February 2017, the old data from 2011-2015 in Germany was reclassified and revisions were sent to Eurostat. This means that the sales data is now comparable from 2011 onwards.

Since 2021, the amount of the former summary active substance "fatty acids C7-C20" (formerly I99_99_23) was split up into the two individual active substances "capric acid" (ZR99_99_07) and "caprylic acid" (ZR99_99_08). Since this meant a significant increase for these two substances and the category ZR99_99, as well as a methodological change for I99_99, the B flag was set for these classification categories. However, for ZR99, PES_ZR or PPM_TOT there were no significant changes in the amounts (for PPM_TOT no change at all due to the split), so the B flag was not set for these.

11 years (2011-2022).

The calculation method and unit of the sales data are compatible to the statistics on national PPP use, which is compiled by the Julius Kühn-Institute, Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants (JKI). However, no systematic comparison is made between sales and use data. Differences may occur e. g. because the pesticide use statistics in Germany does not include:

• use for seed treatment;
• use outside agriculture;
• use for non-professionals;
• use in very minor crops.

Furthermore, pesticides sold in one reporting year may not be used in the year of sale (storage effect).

Not applicable for pesticide sales statistics, because the data collection is annual.

Not applicable, because it is not related to national accounts.

The sales statistics are consistent within a given data set.

No news releases.

The BVL publishes annual reports of aggregated sales data on its website (the reports are in German): "Absatz an Pflanzenschutzmitteln in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland - Ergebnisse der Meldungen gemäß § 64 Pflanzenschutzgesetz für das Jahr XXXX". These reports contain sales quantities aggregated in tables together with summary information on the authorisation status of PPPs and their active substances in the reporting year.

Since November 2023, the sales data is also published on the BVL data platform (only in German).

The sales quantities of individual active substances since 1987 have been published as a separate file for the first time in 2021 (See this website); > "sales quantities of active substances...". This file is continuously amended with data from future reference years.

Not available. The BVL does not keep records on how often individual files in its internet domain are accessed or downloaded.

See sub-concepts 11.1 and 11.2 on confidentiality of microdata.

See sub-concept 5.1.

The yearly report on sales of PPPs mentioned under subsection 9.2 contains introductory text, explaining the most important legal and methodogical issues, and information on revisions, if applicable. Detailed instructions on methodology from data collection to publication of results are laid down in internal quality management documents of the BVL (in German). The BVL's internal quality management documents are in principle not available to the public.

See sub-concept 4.1: The process of data collection, processing and distribution is laid down in the BVL's internal quality management documents (only available in German). The BVL's internal quality management documents are in principle not available to the public. Since 2012, the BVL is certified according to ISO 9001. This includes internal self-assessments ("audits") by different units of the BVL at regular intervals, and external audits by a certification authority.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Costs associated with the collection and production of pesticide sales statistics at the BVL per year are estimated as follows for the reporting year 2022: 25% of the yearly working time of a scientific officer (46.352 Euro), 25% of the yearly working time of an assistant (27.869 Euro), 5 working days of a technical assistant for IT issues (3.473 Euro). The estimated total administrative cost to collect data and produce the statistics is thus 77.694 Euro.

The burden on respondents has been estimated as follows: number of business cases (= number of plant protection products for which sales had to be reported: 4.590) * estimated time needed to complete each business case (32 minutes) *  standard cost factor for relevant reporting duties as published by the federal statistical office (currently 40,80 Euro/hour) = 99.878 Euro.

The range and details requested from the respondents is laid down in Article 64 of the German Plant Protection Act. Figures on cost and burden include the production of statistical data on sales of plant protections products in Germany as well as on export from Germany.

The data sought from businesses should be readily available from their accounts. Electronic reporting and transmission formats are accepted as far as practicable. See also sub-concept 3.1.1.

Sales data of individual plant protection products is considered confidential business information and may not be made available to the public without previous agreement from the the authorisation holder. Pursuant to a decision of the administrative court of Braunschweig on 28 March 2019, sales data of active substances in plant protection products are no longer treated as confidential business information because it is considered as emission into the environment. This substance-spedific data must be made available on request and is also published (see sub-concept 9.2). Electronic raw data are stored in a database running only in the BVL's internal network. Completed reporting forms which contain company sales data in paper form are kept under lock and key for 20 years. After that, they are disposed of in a way to ensure confidentiality.

All BVL staff have signed a declaration that they are aware of the relevant articles in the German Criminal Code, which stipulates that internal data or other information must not be disclosed without prior permission. As all public authorities, the BVL is obliged to implement EU and national IT security guidelines.

See sub-concept 11.1.

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