EU delays ban of fungicide Tricyclazole in rice

The European Commission has delayed its ban of imported rice containing the chemical Tricyclazole after Cambodian farmers complained the move was being pushed through too fast.



The EU commission originally announced that Cambodia’s milled rice industry must eradicate the use of Tricyclazole by this month and that exports of Cambodian rice must not contain more than 0.01 milligrams of the chemical per kilogramme, or face bans.

But the commission has now pushed the deadline back until the end of September, to give exporters time to sell stock and to educate farmers about eliminating the use of the fungicide.

Hun Lak, vice president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, said the EU’s decision to delay the ban came after an outcry from farmers.

“We received many complaints, so we asked the EU to delay until September so we have time to educate farmers and find new fungicides to replace the banned one,” Mr Lak said.

“We need time to carry out in-depth studies into replacement fungicides. If farmers use something they lack proper understanding of, then it could have very negative consequences for the industry.” 

The EU first informed Cambodia of its plan to outlaw Tricyclazole in February.

Hean Vanhan, director-general of the Agriculture of Ministry’s general directorate of agriculture, said the timeframe was unrealistic from the start.

“It was not good enough. If it was delayed until the end of the year it would be even better, because we would have time to export all the rice in stock,” Mr Vanhan said. “Between now and September, we will be exporting the rice that remains from last year.”

Mr Vanhan encouraged rice exporters and the CRF to export all stocks by September, before starting to plant rice without the use of Tricyclazole.

Sang Saron, CEO of Amru Rice Cambodia, said the next few months will be used to get farmers up to speed on replacing the banned pesticide.
 
Despite this, he said the EU had never found unacceptable levels of fungicide in Cambodia’s milled rice exports.

Mr Saron’s company alone exported about 20,000 tonnes of milled rice to the EU market in the first five months of this year.

“Cambodia already uses minimal chemical fungicides, unlike Vietnam,” he said.

According to Mr Lak, the CRF will ask for another delay from the EU if Cambodia’s rice farmers are not ready by September.

Classified by region, the EU is the biggest market for Cambodia’s rice. Last year, the EU imported 341,066 tonnes of Cambodian milled rice.