Source: POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 2/5/20

Farmers in the EU would need to slash their use of pesticides and fertilizers by at least 30 percent over the next decade under a draft of the European Commission's biodiversity strategy, which was shared with our POLITICO Europe colleagues.

The hard targets mark a moment of reckoning for Europe's farm sector, which has never been forced to comply with a specific blueprint for meeting the bloc's mid-century climate goals — unlike other industries including energy and transportation. The biodiversity strategy would also require that at least 10 percent of Europe's farmland is devoted to "non-productive and landscape features" such as hedges and trees, while 30 percent is reserved for organic farms.

Of course, the draft reduction targets aren't guaranteed to become law. Powerful entities will lobby to water down the chemical reduction goals, and Brussels will need member nations and the European Parliament to sign off on its biodiversity plans, which are expected to be released in late March.

The big picture: Despite the cozy position farmers have long enjoyed in the EU's political pecking order, the tide has steadily been turning against pesticides like glyphosate. A spokesperson for Bayer, which produces glyphosate, said the company is already aiming to reduce the "environmental impact" of its crop protection products by 30 percent over the next decade.