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 national market for one calendar year according to the Regulation (EC) No 1185/2009 as amended by Commission Regulation (EU) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 as regards the list of active substances.

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

http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pflschg_2012/index.html

Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL)

2012

All variables required under EU regulation are covered. However, the amounts of plant protection products placed on the market for experiments or tests 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.

None.

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) 2017/269 of 16 February 2017 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 market nationally (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 (https://www.bvl.bund.de/pppsalesreport). 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 January each year. 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 of 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. By end 2022, it will also be possible to submit the reports via the existing BVL applicants' portal for plant protection products (https://portal.bvl.bund.de/bvlExtern/authenticate.do).

Annually.

See sections 2.1.1. - 2.1.3..  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 already stored in the database. 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 on the printout of the company report and 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.

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 from the application process of the plant protection product.

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 of the data set.

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 mainly due to incorrect contact details, especially of parallel trade companies, might potentially be a problem. 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 a table which contains 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 are provided with substance-specific sales data on request. 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.

Aggregated sales data are also transmitted to FAOSTAT on request, as long as FAOSTAT cannot access the data delivered to EUROSTAT.

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.

100%

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 does not collect sales data in terms of kg of products or active substances from its member companies any longer. 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 contactcan be established by these means (this has so far only been the case for parallel trade companies), the authorisations for parallel trade from this person or company are invalidated, until the person or company provides up-to-date contact details 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 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 (www.bvl.bund.de/pppsalesreport).

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

Overall, 226 companies were responsible for reporting sales data for 2019. Of these, 140 were authorisation holders, 95 were holders of parallel trade permits, and 9 companies fell into both categories. 8 companies (7 of them parallel traders) did not respond at all (overall unweighted non-response rate 3,5 %). Unweighted non-response rate for authorisation holders was thus 0,7 % (1 of 140 companies), for holders of parallel trade permits 8,1 % (7 of 86 companies; this means those 9 companies which were also authorisation holders are excluded). For most of the non-responding parallel trade companies, the BVL was informed in 2020 that the companies had closed down and that no legal successor exists.

It was assumed that the non-responding parallel trade companies did not sell any plant protection products in Germany in 2019 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, but 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 2017, the sales quota for authorised PPP was 65,9 %, whereas the sales quota for PPP with parallel trade permits was only 8,1 %. Sales quota is now calculated every 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. However, this can only improve item non-response rate in the second year after the permits have been revoked.

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 presumed administrative offences outside Germany is difficult and time-consuming, was thus not considered appropriate and was not 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 2019 was 0,49 % (no response for 18 of 3707 PPPs for which a report was expected).

Item non-response rate based only on the 2698 parallel trade products for which a permit was valid in 2019 was 0,48 %.

Item non-response rate based only on the 1009 products with a "regular" national authorisation was 0,5 %.

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 should be 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 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.

9 years (2011-2019)

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 web site (https://www.bvl.bund.de/pppstatistics; 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.

The sales quantities of individual active substances since 1987 have been published as a separate file in 2021 https://www.bvl.bund.de/pppstatistics; > "sales quantities of active substances...". This file will be 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: 25% of the yearly working time of a scientific officer (37.759 Euro), 25% of the yearly working time of an assistant (25.592 Euro), 5 working days of a technical assistant for IT issues (3.211 Euro). The estimated total administrative cost to collect data and produce the statistics for the reporting year 2019 is thus 66562 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: 4611) * standard cost factor for complex reporting duties as published by the federal statistical office (currently 23,78 Euro) = 109.650 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.

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. 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 10 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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