Less input-intensive farming is at least as economically viable as high input/high pesticide-intensive farming. See for example, the studies by Mouron et all. (2005) and Reganold et all. (2001). Even from the commercial point of view, if Directive 91/414 removes the most hazardous pesticides from the market and substitutes pesticides by less harmful alternatives and non-chemical methods, that would be an advantage for the society. Industry could rip benefits too, by moving to new, more profitable pesticides.
High input farming has enormous external costs. In a US study, only runoff/leaching accounts for 6% of crop revenues (Färe et all., 2005). In a UK study (Pretty et all., 2000), hidden costs of British intensive agriculture is estimated to be at least 208£/ha. Another US study (Brethour and Weersink, 2001) shows that pesticide reduction in Ontario benefits US households at 166 $ a year.
In Germany, Waibel and Fleischer started to work on a cost-benefit analysis of pesticides in Germany in 1992 and published a comprehensive book in 1998 (Waibel and Fleischer, 1998). The book analyses benefits as well as external costs of pesticide use in the former Western Germany. The total costs amounted to 128.79 Million Euros, given the best scenario. This figure does not include chronic effects of pesticides on human health, long-term effects on the sustainability of agricultural production and soil fertility.