Current and Future Scenarios of Glyphosate Use in Europe: Are There Alternatives?

Glyphosate is the world’s most used herbicide to control weeds in tree and herbaceouscrops, and in non-agricultural areas. However, health and environmental concerns, aswell as the spread of weed resistance, may lead to a ban or limitations of its use.This event would necessitate that alternative weed control techniques be madeavailable quickly. Potential chemical alternatives include herbicides authorized for thesame uses as glyphosate that in this review were identified through searches of thepesticide databases of Italy, Spain, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Estonia.Non-chemical control measures encompass mowing, tillage, and cover crops in agricul-tural areas and mowing, flaming, hot water, hot foam, and steam in non-agriculturalareas. Examination of the data reveals that a loss of glyphosate availability would notonly require more complex and expensive weed managements, but also integrationof multiple weed control techniques.