A popular farm chemical import program is being replaced by a series of reforms at the Pest Management Regulatory Agency that will give farmers timely access to pesticides at a fair price, says a member of a task force looking into the issue.
The reforms are being implemented to address some of the problems highlighted by the own-use import, or OUI, program.
Canadian farmers imported 5.7 million litres of a low priced U.S. generic glyphosate called ClearOut 41 Plus through that program in 2005. They are on pace to top that volume in 2006.
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The popularity of a program that side-steps the PMRA’s existing pesticide registration system brought many lingering issues to the boiling point, resulting in positive changes at the agency, said Mark Goodwin, a grower and industry representative on the OUI task force.
“The culture of PMRA has really rapidly evolved towards something that we are really excited about,” he said. “They seem ready to try and fix things, to catch things up.”
Goodwin said the agency was already working toward changing policy, but the OUI program expedited the process by swamping the PMRA with requests for cheap American glyphosate.
The task force, which included grower groups, pesticide manufacturers, government representatives and non-government organizations, has yet to release its official report, but Goodwin outlined the proposed changes in the June 2006 issue of Saskatchewan Pulse Growers’ PulsePoint magazine.
The policy changes will likely take effect starting October 2007. Until then, farmers will be allowed to continue using the old OUI program to import generic glyphosate.
Proposed changes revolve on two themes: giving growers better access to new and old chemistries and creating competition in the marketplace to keep prices in check.
Goodwin said the PMRA has agreed to target up to 72 existing active ingredients that will be “assessed proactively and potentially registered on a fast-track basis in Canada.”
He said the rapid registration of those products should not raise environmental or health and safety concerns because the products involved are newer reduced-risk chemicals.
The agency has also committed to accelerating efforts to harmonize product registration within the North America Free Trade Agreement group.
“Canadian growers have always lagged U.S. growers by a couple of years or more in terms of getting new chemistries. That’s a real competitive disadvantage,” said Goodwin during an interview about his PulsePoint article.
The proposed new rules also address the lack of competition in the Canadian marketplace. By October 2007, the PMRA will put a system in place to modernize the registration of cheap generic products like ClearOut 41 Plus, mimicking what happens south of the border.
“In the U.S., the barriers to entry to registering generics are far easier to overcome than they have been in Canada,” said Goodwin.
The agency will continue to allow the import of products from the U.S., much like the existing OUI program, but instead of the onus being on producers to prove chemical equivalency through a series of regulatory submissions, they will simply have to apply for a one-time import permit.
It will then be up to the PMRA to assess whether the product is equivalent to products registered in Canada.
“Once all these things are in place, there really wouldn’t be any need for an ad hoc program like the OUI,” said Goodwin.
Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada, was reluctant to say much about the report until it is officially released.
But he acknowledged that his trade association, which represents Canadian pesticide manufacturers, has signed off on the document.
“We’ve agreed to the report and we think it’s a win, win, win for everybody.”
Hepworth said the most critical component of the proposed reform package is the rededication to the principle of NAFTA harmonization.
“Quite frankly, if we had harmonization full bore, we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion,” he said.
Hepworth added that his member companies can live with the new chemical import rules, which address some of the product stewardship concerns they had with the existing OUI program.
