The new EU with new pesticide rules

The two-year battle over evaluation criteria in the EU ended in January with a compromise, but the industry is still worried.

More than 83 percent of manufacturers, distributors and regulatory companies say the new rules will affect their businesses in some way, according to an online FCI Reader Poll. About 17 percent of respondents say the new rules will not affect their businesses.

At the heart of the new legislation is a transition to evaluating substances on hazard-based criteria instead of the traditional risk-based criteria, which considers how a chemical is used as well as the application rate. The new rules will prevent a product from re-registration if it has the potential to disrupt the endocrine system, even if the product’s application rate renders it harmless to growers, consumers and the environment.

Why is this unfair? Paul Leonard, corporate and governmental relations for crop protection for BASF explains it like this: Automobiles are dangerous (about 1 million people are killed in automobile accidents each year). They can be implements of murder and even agents for mass casualties. But the mitigating effects of infrastructure and the rules of the road create an environment of safe use and bring considerable benefit to our societies.

And that’s the real letdown about the new cutoff criteria: We will lose some chemistries that helped mitigate resistance and/or bolster yields. “The criteria could result in the loss of a number of active substances, which could undermine integrated pest management programs, food production and affordability,” says Sabine Hoffmann, spokesperson for Syngenta Crop Protection.

Although the new criteria won’t apply to substances until their current registrations expire, it’s clear that many chemicals, including some triazoles and dithiocarbonates, won’t be available for food production in the EU for too long. And some R&D efforts could be compromised as well.

But the most troubling development for the industry is the introduction of the hazard-based methodology. The endocrine disruptor cutoff criteria is the first step, but just like many legislative agendas before, many fear it won’t be the last step.