If pesticides are not developed, manufactured and sold in Europe, can we just import them instead?

Pesticides operate in a global market and they can only be placed on the EU market if they meet the stringent EU rules. With the loss of crop protection solution in the EU, the more likely scenario is that imported food would replace home-grown food, as farmers in non-EU countries would be able to use a wider range of pesticides and hence to produce more efficiently than EU farmers. This raises all sorts of questions about the safety of imported food which is regulated by different rules, about transport of food, food production techniques, labour and environmental problems etc.