Many crop protection products are being applied illegally in this country under the definition used by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency.
According to the PMRA, it’s technically illegal to use a product not registered for a specific crop, even if the only risk is your individual crop yield.
I was recently audited by the PMRA, which is a division of Health Canada. Buy me a beer sometime and thank me for taking one for the team.
PMRA has decided to focus on mustard growers this year, so as executive director of the Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission, I was asked to provide a list of mustard growers. They wanted to interview about a dozen producers.
Read Also
Agriculture needs to prepare for government spending cuts
As government makes necessary cuts to spending, what can be reduced or restructured in the budgets for agriculture?
We cited privacy laws and said we couldn’t provide a grower list. If they wanted to talk with mustard growers, they’d have to find them a different way.
A little while later PMRA contacted me again.
“You’re a mustard grower, aren’t you? Can I come and talk to you about your production practices and what products you used this year?”
I haven’t used any unregistered products on my mustard and I figured that if they interviewed me, it would be one producer off their quota. The audit request sounded optional, but in retrospect I wonder what would have happened if I had refused.
The woman was professional, courteous, had an agriculture degree and a farm background. I gave her a rather blunt assessment of what I thought about some PMRA policies, but it didn’t faze her. She’d heard much stronger rebukes.
“So if I told you that I had used an unregistered product, what would happen then?” I asked.
“Well, we might fine you, but that’s determined on a case by case basis,” she said.
That doesn’t seem like a great incentive for producer honesty, but they also collect leaf samples for analysis. While the process has a big backlog, eventually the leaf samples will be analyzed to see if I was telling the truth about products applied.
Some crop protection products could cause residue issues and mess up export markets when applied off-label. I understand why that’s illegal.
However, most off-label uses have no residue risk. They aren’t labelled because the manufacturer hasn’t invested the time and money for registration or because they may cause a yield decrease.
Many producers are willing to risk a small yield penalty if they have no other weed control options. Any possible harm ends on their farm. In the eyes of the PMRA, this is still illegal.
I could provide many examples of products that are commonly used off-label, but sometimes it’s better to not put things in print. Little wonder that most producers would rather avoid a PMRA audit.
The pleasant PMRA woman also asked about the safety equipment I wear when applying crop protection products.
I consider most of the products I use to be no more dangerous than some of the chemicals under our kitchen sink, so I’m often using far less safety equipment than what is recommended.
The woman’s eyes grew rather large as that discussion continued, but she reassured me that they probably wouldn’t fine me for my lax safety.
“That’s good,” I said with thinly veiled sarcasm.
In many other jurisdictions, all applicators, including farmers, are licensed and keep log books. The PMRA likes that. Makes you wonder how long it will be until Big Brother will be riding along on the sprayer, at least figuratively.
