Integrating environmental and social dimensions with science-based knowledge for a Sustainable Pesticides Management – A project of Lombardy Region in Italy.

Achieving a change towards the sustainable use and management of pesticides requires a multi-ple perspective approach that combines traditional knowledge, experience of different local stakeholders, scientific expertise, and context-specific data to provide useful and understandable information for the target farmers. In this paper, the incorporation of the information on environ-mental and social dimensions information into a “science-based” pesticide management practice, is presented as an example of a replicable multidisciplinary approach. This approach depicts the importance of the context -specific scenario analysis and of the involvement of farmers starting from their practices and their knowledge. A diverse range of engagement initiatives have been adopted to consult, inform, and involve the community. Tools as target guidelines of good prac-tices, self-evaluation checklists, and a user-friendly indicator, that considerconsiders social, en-vironmental, and territorial parameters of the specific area, gained largea lot of interest and trust and have proven to be useful in disseminating the methodology of Environmental Risk Assess-mentenvironmental risk assessment to farmers, supporting and assisting them in the comparison of different phytosanitary strategies at farm scale, to identify weaknesses in their current pesti-cide management at farm level and to find corresponding corrective actions. The experience also highlighted the importance of the role of properly trained and informed advisors