EPA to revise regulation for expanding opportunities for minor crops

EPA is proposing to revise the pesticide crop grouping regulations that allow the establishment of tolerances for groups of related crops. The proposed revisions, published in a November 9, 2011, Federal Register Notice, expand the existing stone fruit and tree nut crop groups by establishing new crop subgroups and/or adding new commodities and naming the expanded crop groups in a way that distinguishes them from the existing groups. EPA expects these proposed revisions to promote the greater use of crop groupings for tolerance-setting purposes and, in particular, to assist in making available lower-risk pesticides for minor crops, both domestically and in countries that export food to the United States. This is the third in a series of planned crop group updates we expect to propose over the next several years.

This proposed crop group rule is based upon two petitions developed by the International Crop Grouping Consulting Committee workgroup and submitted to EPA by a nationwide cooperative project, the Interregional Research Project Number 4 (IR-4). We have included these petitions and the monographs supporting them in the docket for the proposed rule, which is available in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2006-0766 at www.regulations.gov. EPA believes that this proposal is a burden-reducing regulation.

Comments on the proposed rule are due on or before January 9, 2012.