New rules for the register of plant protection products in 2025
From January 1, 2025, new guidelines for the documentation of plant protection treatments come into force. At Meridian Greater Poland, we see that many farmers from around Poznań and Kalisz still rely on old templates, which will end in a fine or loss of the GlobalGAP certificate at the next audit. We know the land and the numbers, so we have prepared a list of specific changes that you must implement in your documentation right now.
End of general descriptions in documentation
Until now, many farmers we have been working with since September 2017 only entered the name of the product and the approximate dose per hectare in the register. From January 2025, PIORiN and certification bodies require the exact batch number of each used package. If you use three different batches of the same preparation on a field of 4.87 hectares, each of them must be noted separately along with the area assigned to it. This is a real change that requires the sprayer operator to take photos of labels or write down codes directly when mixing the working liquid.
At Meridian Greater Poland, we checked 134 registers of our clients in the last quarter of 2024 and as many as 87 of them contained errors in dating treatments relative to the plant growth stage (BBCH). The new regulations place great emphasis on the fact that the timing of the spraying must be justified by a specific threat message or a reading from your own weather station. You can no longer enter the date 'from memory' two weeks after the treatment. GlobalGAP auditors during the inspection in March 2025 will check the consistency of these dates with purchase invoices and inventory with an accuracy of 0.1 liters of preparation.
You get facts, not promises: if you don't change the way you take notes now, you will face a financial penalty at the first inspection in the new season, which in 2024 averaged 2,340 PLN for farms up to 50 hectares. We watch the deadlines for you, but the reliability of entries in the field depends on your people. It is worth training tractor drivers before the end of February so that they know that failing to enter a batch number is not just a 'paper error', but a real threat to the sale of goods to large retail chains.
The lack of a batch number in the register is the most common reason for a negative GlobalGAP audit assessment, which we recorded with 42 clients in 2024.
Weather conditions and certificate validity
The new regulations for 2025 force the recording of wind speed and temperature with the accuracy of the specific hour of start and end of work. Previously, the annotation 'sunny weather, light wind' was enough. Now, if the auditor sees that the aphid spraying was carried out at a temperature of 26.4 degrees Celsius with a preparation that only works up to 20 degrees, they will consider it an incorrect treatment and inconsistent with the label. This, in turn, automatically lowers the score in the food certification system by 12-15 percentage points, which often decides on the lack of certificate renewal.
In our practice at Meridian Greater Poland, we often encounter a situation where a farmer performs a treatment according to the art, but an error in the documentation suggests otherwise. From January 2025, the register must also contain information about the anti-drift nozzles used if the treatment was carried out at a distance of less than 18 meters from public roads or watercourses. This is a detail that 64% of farms forget about, and which is scored during every PIORiN inspection. We watch these details because we know the devil is in the milliliters and meters.
We recommend investing in a simple hand-held anemometer for each employee performing treatments. The cost of such a device is about 167 PLN, and it avoids questioning the validity of the treatment by inspection. Remember that in 2025, records must be kept continuously. A break in entries longer than 4 business days from the moment of the treatment will be treated as a gross violation of production discipline. Do not leave filling in the notebook for Sunday afternoon, because the numbers will not match the reality in the field.
Electronic register — is it mandatory?
Many people ask us at the office on Półwiejska Street in Poznań if they have to switch to mobile apps from 2025. The answer is: there is no compulsion, but paper is becoming increasingly risky. The paper version must be legible and free of corrections with white-out. Every correction must be initialed and dated with the date of the change. With the 487 clients we have served since the beginning of our activity, we noticed that digital records shorten the preparation time for certification by an average of 3.2 hours per week.
If you decide to stay with paper, make sure your template contains the column 'Justification for the treatment'. This is a new feature that must be included in the documentation. It can be a reference to the harmfulness threshold (e.g. 4 pieces of weevil per yellow vessel) or a signal from a decision support system. At Meridian Greater Poland, we help adapt these descriptions to real conditions in your district, based on historical data from our stations located in Greater Poland. Do not let an error in the name of a pest ruin your chances for a subsidy from ecoschemes.
It is also worth paying attention to the issue of storing records. The new law imposes an obligation to keep registers for 3 years, but for GlobalGAP certification, 5 years back is required. If you destroy documents from 2021 in January 2025, you may have a problem proving the continuity of protection in your orchard or on a vegetable plantation. At Meridian Greater Poland, we archive digital copies for our regular clients, which has already saved 14 farms from losing contracts when their originals were destroyed by office flooding or fire.
Digitalization of documentation is not a whim, it's a saving of 3.2 hours of office work every week of the season.
Meridian Greater Poland support in the new season
As a company from Poznań with 7 years of experience, we not only advise but also take responsibility for the correctness of your documents. Our team, in which Beata Ratajczak works, personally verifies every entry before sending the certification application. In 2024, we conducted 97 internal audits, each of which was successful in the certification body. We know the land and the numbers, so we know how to talk to inspectors when they question the dose of fertilizer or the timing of the spray.
Our help does not end with preparing a spreadsheet in Excel. We offer full support in the implementation of ISO and GlobalGAP standards, adapted to the specifics of Greater Poland soils and crops. If you have doubts whether your current register will pass inspection in 2025, we can check it in 47 minutes during a short consultation at our office. We don't promise miracles, we promise documentation that no one will find fault with. This is real value for your business and peace of mind with every visit from officials.
Remember that deadlines in agriculture do not wait. Preparation for the changes in 2025 is best started with a review of the plant protection product warehouse in December. Write down the statuses, check the expiration dates and prepare new record sheets. If you need a ready template compliant with the new requirements, contact us. We will send you a proven template within 24 hours so that you can safely enter the new season without fear of official penalties.
