Your morning coffee could soon cost a lot more. A new European Commission study warns that cracking down on pesticides banned in the EU but still used abroad would shield European farmers, though it risks pricier coffee, citrus and grapes. In the most extreme scenario, coffee could jump by more than 300 per cent.
Behind those numbers lies a simple trade-off. The Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) modelled what happens if Brussels lowers maximum residue levels (MRLs), the amount of pesticide residue allowed in food, to the lowest level laboratories can detect. The result: agricultural imports fall, EU production rises, and consumers pay more in every scenario tested. How much depends on how fast producers outside the EU can adapt.
European farmers have long complained that foreign producers get an unfair edge by using pesticides banned at home. Brussels listened. In its Vision for Agriculture and Food, the Commission promised that the most dangerous banned pesticides would no longer slip back into the EU market through imports. The JRC study was commissioned to feed that debate with numbers.
Imports could fall 41% in worst case
Researchers identified 18 hazardous pesticides that are banned in the EU but still turn up in imports or remain legal in exporting countries. Together, they could affect 235 products across 86 countries. The JRC then modelled three possible reactions from exporters.
In the toughest scenario, foreign producers keep using the banned substances, lose access to the EU market, and total agricultural imports drop by 41 per cent. If exporters switch to alternative methods instead, the fall is far smaller: eight per cent in the middle scenario and just 0.4 per cent in the mildest one. Everything hinges on how quickly foreign farmers can adapt.
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Even the milder scenarios have real winners and losers. Citrus growers would see production climb by more than three per cent, but shoppers would pay for it: coffee could cost six per cent more, table grapes 6.5 per cent more, and citrus itself 5.6 per cent more. Multiply that across every affected product, and the JRC estimates overall EU output would inch up just 0.23 per cent.
The extreme scenario is where the trade-off turns painful. Livestock farmers, not just importers, would take the hit: as feed costs climb, pork output could fall by 5.8 per cent and poultry by 5.4 per cent. But it is shoppers who would feel it most. A cup of coffee could end up costing 332 per cent more, with soybean cake up 105 per cent and citrus 85 per cent. The mildest scenario, by contrast, barely moves the needle, with every figure staying under one per cent.
The JRC is quick to add a caveat: these are not predictions. The scenarios mark out the boundaries of what could happen, not a forecast of what will. Much still depends on whether producers can find and afford alternatives to the banned pesticides.
Commission distances study from Omnibus
The Commission sought on Tuesday to distance the new findings from the Food and Feed Safety Simplification Package, proposed at the end of 2025. Asked whether higher food prices and import restrictions could make the plan unviable, a Commission spokesperson said the study was only “one step in a long process”. “Food and Feed Safety Omnibus is now with the co-legislators and remains in the approval process,” said Eva Hrnčírová, spokesperson for the European Commission.
Food and Feed Safety Omnibus is now with the co-legislators and remains in the approval process.
— Eva Hrnčírová, Spokesperson, European Commission
The distinction matters. The Commission’s December 2025 proposal would let MRLs for the most hazardous substances drop to the limit of quantification, even where current residue levels are already considered safe for EU consumers. The specific assessment tied to the simplification package, the Commission said, covers substances where lower limits are already under consideration. Brussels added that international partners had been notified, and their comments assessed and answered.
A political trade-off
The JRC findings do not settle the debate; they simply quantify the tension at its heart. Tighter standards could ease the competitive disadvantage facing European farmers, push producers elsewhere to raise their own standards, or send trade flowing to other markets instead. But depending on how exporters respond, some of that cost could land on European consumers, or be offset by parts of the livestock sector.
The study is not an impact assessment, either. It does not weigh the environmental or social case behind the EU’s bans, nor does it price out what it would cost producers to switch pesticides, product by product and country by country. The JRC itself calls for deeper analysis before drawing conclusions on individual substances.
That leaves Brussels facing the same unresolved question: how far the EU can push imported food to match the standards set for its own farmers, without pricing ordinary Europeans out of their weekly shop. For now, the JRC’s numbers offer no easy answer, only the scale of what is at stake.
