CONTEXT Reducing pesticide use has become an important policy objective in several countries, yet many have failed to reach their goals. Policies need to be more systemic to address lock-ins hindering pesticide reduction. To do so, policymakers must improve policymaking processes, while ensuring active stakeholder participation. This requires specific policy capacities, which have not yet been characterized. OBJECTIVE This article aims to identify policy capacities needed to improve the collective elaboration of pesticide reduction policies and integrate a systemic approach. METHODS We studied the collective elaboration of the French pesticide reduction plans. We built a narration of the policy process organized by policymakers, based on semi-structured interviews and an analysis of grey literature. We then reflected on which policy capacities policymakers needed to better manage the policy design process, using the “management situation” concept. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS Our results show that to better design pesticide reduction policies, policymakers lacked four types of interdependent “policy capacities”: capacities to support collective sensemaking about lock-ins, to co-design interdependent and multi-level instruments, to co-design suitable implementation structures and to ensure learning. These results highlight an issue of dynamic capabilities in public organizations. SIGNIFICANCE Our results provide concrete proposals to improve design processes for pesticide reduction policies aiming at systemic transformations: there is a need to develop new methods, tools, analytical resources and training programs for policymakers, to support the development of the policy capacities identified. These results also suggest avenues for future action-research between public management, systemic agronomy, sustainability and design sciences.