Turkish Agriculture Ministry announces new crop protection regulation

A new regulation will seek to monitor whether licensed crop protection products are indeed fulfilling the standards demanded by authorities, Turkey’s Agriculture Ministry has said.

The crop protection products, commonly known as pesticides, will be monitored in the production, export, import and application phases, according to the Crop Protection Products Control Regulation that was printed in the Official Gazette on Friday.

Monitoring both prior to the distribution of the product on the market and afterwards will be conducted within the framework of a program prepared by the protection and control general manager when it is deemed to be necessary or after authorities receive complaints about products. Checks will be made within 15 days of the reception of any complaint.

The reports prepared about the checks following complaints will be submitted to the general management within another 15 days after the inspection.

The checks will determine whether the crop protection product is being produced under a license, whether its physical and chemical characteristics comply with the criteria determined in the specification prepared by the ministry, whether it has passed its best-before date, whether it has adverse affects on the crops for which it is recommended and whether it is original and registered.

The firms bearing the license for the products on the market will be responsible for ensuring that the product is present on the market at sufficient levels, fulfilling requirements within the applicable time limits given and providing technical service to distributors.

Samples of the crop protection products to be used in the control tests will be taken from customs, the production units of factories or their storage units, the relevant firms’ sales points, distributors or the complainant.

According to the terms of the regulation, the crop protection products must bear a label saying the market launch of the product was authorized by the ministry; any product not carrying such a label will be removed from the market while their production, export and import will also be banned.