Regulatory Advancements Provide Expanded crop protection to Canadian Fruit and Vegetable Growers

Labels for some leading products from Bayer CropScience, including Admire® (active ingredient: imidacloprid), Reason® ( active ingredient: Fenamidone) and Flint® (active ingredient: Trifloxystrobin), have been expanded to bring Canadian fruit and vegetable growers access to more diversified crop protection options. These changes are thanks to advancements in the regulatory environment in Canada, which now offers regulatory synchronization, allowing Bayer CropScience to review its U.S. fruit and vegetable use patterns and identify opportunities to support Canadian fruit and vegetable growers.

"Canada’s historical regulatory approach to satisfying registration requirements often meant Canadian growers were sometimes restricted from using the same products available to their U.S. counterparts,” said David Kikkert, Portfolio Manager, Horticulture, Bayer CropScience. “The expansion of the Admire, Reason and Flint labels demonstrates our commitment to Canadian growers and how we’re striving to close the technology gap between the U.S. and Canada.”

For 17 years, growers in Canada have used Admire as a trusted product in potatoes, and over these years the label has expanded into crops including ginseng, brassica leafy vegetables (Crop Group 5) and highbush blueberries (Crop Group 13). The new technology gap expansion of the Admire label means Canadian growers can now:

- Apply the product on multiple crops from the same crop groups, such as all pome fruit (Crop Group 11) instead of apples alone
- Use Admire for the protection against leafhoppers on berries and small fruit, including grapes
- Use Admire on the same crops throughout Canada thanks to a national label

Work by Bayer CropScience to reduce the technology gap also means Canadian growers can now use Reason as a foliar fungicide on tomatoes and turnip greens for control of tough diseases like late and early blight and downy mildew. Regulatory advancements have also led to the expansion of the Flint label, which controls several important diseases in Canada including powdery mildew, scab and rust.  Previously registered for management of disease on pome fruit, grapes, cherries and hazelnuts, Canadian growers can now use Flint on a number of new crops, including strawberries for powdery mildew and on asparagus for stemphyllium purple spot and rust.

Over the past five years, while maintaining its regulatory rigour, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) has modified how registrants can satisfy the data requirements. Today, a zonal approach can be used, allowing U.S. data to be submitted in a Canadian registration.  This gives the industry a greater opportunity to address the technology gap between the U.S. and Canada.  The gap is closing as a result of coordinated efforts by all stakeholders including the PMRA, Pest Management Advisory Council (PMAC), Canadian Horticulture Council, global regulatory bodies, grower groups and crop protection companies such as Bayer CropScience.

Several new processes, including Project 914, technology gap and joint review registrations, have allowed the Bayer CropScience fruit and vegetable team members to share registration data with their colleagues in the U.S. for a quicker, more comprehensive review, which has increased the opportunity to obtain many of the same use patterns for both U.S. and Canadian growers.  

"Closing the technology gap between the U.S. and Canada is an important aspect of the registration process,” said Kikkert. “We are committed to capturing regulatory opportunities to further enable Canadian growers to participate in a strong and competitive fruit and vegetable market.”