| By :
Alison Withers
Copyright (c) 2010 Alison Withers We all want to be sure that our food is as healthy and natural as possible. We also want it to be cheap! So we - through the powerful supermarket chains - ramp up the pressure on farmers to use low-chem, "safe" agricultural products, such as bio-pesticides, while also keeping costs down. The time it takes to licence newly-emerging pesticides and other low-chem agricultural products in some parts of the world is a big problem in achieving these goals. It's a particular problem in bureaucracy-plagued Europe, where you're talking three to five years to complete the licensing process. Could new, updated EU regulations passed in October 2009 speed things up at last? The Plant Protection Products Regulation. The new regulations became law on December 14, 2009 and must be applied from June 14, 2011. One key Regulation, Article 67: Recording and Disclosing Information on pesticides, aims to increase the level of protection for people and the environment but also, crucially, to speed up decision making and provide clearer rules. European legislation on plants was first formulated against the background of the 1950´s and 60's when use of heavy metals preparations prevailed with resulting negative environmental and health effects. The EU's aim now is to remove as many substances as possible that have adverse impacts on health and environment or leave dangerous pesticide residues in the final products. The new framework caters for substitution so that others, safer solutions and methods, such as low-chem fertilisers and bio-pesticides can replace the problem agents. Sweden's Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA) has a program called MASE (Microbial Activity for a Sound Environment), which has been working with food producer Findus on the use of micro-organisms in the cultivation of all their pea products. The MASE Program Director, Christopher Folkeson Welch is optimistic that the new regulations will simplify and speed up regulation for the new environmentally-friendly low-chem products now being developed. He reports that there is intense pressure from the food industry for alternatives to chemical pesticides and that Findus is ready to use micro-organisms in the cultivation of all their pea products and wants to see this happen as soon as next year. The new legislation aims to achieve control of both chemical and biological agents used for pest management. The result is both good and bad for us," he says. Deputy program manager of MASE Margaret Hokeberg says: "In the new proposal the authorities have been given a limited evaluation period, which is very important." Another new aspect is the classification of pesticides known as "Low Risk." Here is where Christopher Folkeson Welch and Margaret Hökeberg hope the biological resources will end up. But low-risk agents have a longer approval period than the "traditional" pesticides. At the same time legislators are severely restricting the old option of temporary permits during the evaluation period, which meant a product could be sold on a limited market basis. This change could have negative consequences, particularly for smaller companies with limited research budgets. Often it is small businesses that depend on getting out into the marketplace quickly that research biological pesticides. This, with impatient financiers, is a bad combination according to Margaret Hokeberg. The time it takes for licensing in the EU is a problem for all bio technology research companies as highlighted by Marcus Meadows-Smith, CEO of AgraQuest, a leading US-based company specialising in researching and developing low-chem agricultural products. In a 2009 interview with Agrow - World Crop Protection News, he contrasted reduced regulatory requirements and review times in the US with the "considerably more onerous" EU process, which makes no distinction between bio- and conventional pesticides. He estimates that without a dramatic change in the process it will take up to six years to licence products in Europe and believes its is not right that farmers should have to compromise on yield and profitability as older, more toxic pesiticides are banned, leaving gaps in their portfolios. The company has several bio-pesticides already on the US market but only one product, a bio-fungicide called Serenade, licensed in the EU in partnership with distributor BASF. Hopefully the new EU regulations will be good news for AgraQuest, European farmers and food producers and ultimately for us consumers.
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