Phytosanitary products

The Phytosanitary products are the active substances and the chemical compounds containing one or more active substances destined to:  

• protect the vegetables or the vegetable products from all the harmful organisms or to prevent their effects;  
• favor or regulate the life processes of the vegetables with exclusion of the fertilizers;  
• preserve the vegetable products with exclusion of the preservatives disciplined by particular dispositions;  
• eliminate the unwanted plants;  
• eliminate some parts of vegetables, stop or avoid their unwanted growth.  

Many of these substances are conceived to fight unwanted forms of life and, for this reason, they can also have negative effects on organisms that are not the direct target of their action and on the quality of the environment and therefore on human health. 
Around 150.000 tons of phytosanitary products are annually used in Italy, only for agricultural use (a domestic use of these substances also exists).
Today it exists an increasing commitment both in the scientific and legal field, to define a control system aimed to reduce the risks coming from the use of these substances, with the objective of a sustainable development that can protect both the needs of the production and the guarantees for the people’s health and protection of the environment.

It must be said that after the 91/414/CEE Directive, the authorizing process for these substances, which was once essentially founded only on the man’s health protection, has now acknowledged the concept of environmental risk and has enforced a prevention strategy, imposing also for the new substances the respect of well-defined environmental requirements.