Canada’s largest farm organization says it was hoodwinked by chemical companies into agreeing to a flawed substitute for the Own Use Import, or OUI, program.
Starting in July, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency will implement the Grower Requested Own Use, or GROU, program, which enables farmers to cross-border shop for chemicals on an approved list.
A task force that included representatives from chemical companies and farm groups asked the PMRA to investigate 12 grower-nominated pesticides. In March, the agency determined eight of those products would be available for import through GROU.
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But a few weeks before the program was to start, three of those products have been pulled from the list because one was under patent protection and the other two contained recently registered active ingredients subject to data protection rules.
Canadian Federation of Agriculture president Bob Friesen said growers feel betrayed by the last-minute changes and are questioning the good faith of the pest control companies participating in the program.
“If this continues, there is going to be massive dissatisfaction in (a program that) companies offered us and assured us would work and would be better than the OUI,” he said.
Friesen said he doesn’t care what explanation is proffered for the removal of the three products from the list. To him it smacks of price discrimination in which chemical companies charge Canadian farmers more than their American counterparts for the same products.
“We have to wonder if this now sets the stage for more corporate game playing in the future of this program,” said Friesen.
Peter MacLeod, executive director of CropLife Canada, said there are no sinister motives, just companies exercising their legitimate intellectual property rights. He warned against giving up on the GROU program before it is officially launched.
Pierre Petelle, acting head of policy and strategic advice with the PMRA, would not divulge which three products have been removed from the list. The five that remain are Basagran Liquid Herbicide, Banvel II Herbicide, Roundup Weathermax with Transorb 2 Technology Liquid Herbicide, Reflex Liquid Herbicide and Touchdown iQ Liquid Herbicide.
He, too, was disappointed by the late notification from the chemical companies that some products would be ineligible for the program.
Petelle said this was the first run of the program and there are bound to be glitches, but administrators will learn from the mistakes.
MacLeod agreed and said it is important to keep the big picture in mind, which is that farmers are now allowed to bring five products across the border instead of one.
“I guess I can understand the CFA’s disappointment but even in this early pilot stage it is still bigger than the original OUI program,” he said.
He added that the PMRA has committed to expediting the review of more grower-nominated products to find three substitutes for the ones that have been removed from the list.
If pesticide manufacturers are unwilling to co-operate by supplying the necessary information to determine product eligibility for the GROU program, the OUI program will be resuscitated.
