Biological Production Meeting: Argentina is unable to register bioinputs

The development and production of bioinputs in Argentina are already so extensive that the local government has stopped assessing and granting registrations to many products created in the country.

The information was released at the Production Meeting with Biologicals, held for the second consecutive year in the Argentine city of Venado Tuerto, which AgroPages exclusively covered.

In Argentina, there are currently 942 registrations of biological products by the National Service of Agro-Food Sanity and Quality (Senasa), including phytosanitary products, fertilizers, and correctives, which correspond to 158 different companies.

Most bioinputs are made from bacteria, followed by those originating from fungi, and are intended mainly for soybean cultivation.

Many products are also indicated for legumes, such as peanuts, vetches, lentils, peas, chickpeas, cereals such as wheat and corn and, finally, pastures.

During the event, which brought together more than 1,400 participants, statistics released stated that in Argentina, 38% percent of crops use only agrochemicals, while 29% use both chemical and biological pesticides, and only 17 percent use only bio-inputs.

″The products have a differentiation. Organics are in nature, through molecules such as plant extracts, metabolites produced by bioorganisms, biochemical substances, with genera and species originating from a fungus, bacteria or virus,″ said Sebastián Gómez, technical supervisor of the Product Registration Area, in a lecture. Phytosanitary and Biological Fertilizers from Senasa (National Food Safety and Quality Service).

A few months ago, there was an orientation within the State body to speed up the registration of biological products.

″We are very advanced; there is a firm political decision on this, to have a standard separate from the general registration of chemical products, to provide individual and specific treatment to this type of bioproduct. There is support within the agency to promote the biological sector,″ Gómez said.

He admitted that there are ″delays in product approvals″, because there is more demand for registrations than personnel available for work in regulatory entities, as there were cuts in Senasa.

The supervisor revealed to AgroPages that a Senasa resolution is being prepared in Argentina to differentiate bioinputs from bioprepared products.

″This work is mandatory because it has to do with the specific requirements of each product and not seek details within something more generic″, he explained.

For Sebastián Gómez, this regulation being worked on will have a very positive impact on the productive sector, on the adoption of products and procedures by professionals and advisors ″because it is a demand, above all, from the industry.″

″This will not be the last norm to come out; there will be a series of norms tending to improve the registration of products and their use. Then we will fine-tune, with successive regulations that continue to update the resolutions that come out soon,″ he explained.

Roberto Rapela, President of Cabio (Câmara Argentina de Bioinsumos), said the problem is that ″bioinputs are being registered in Senasa in the agrochemicals area because there is no specific area.″

″We asked for the reform of Resolutions 350 and 264 to adapt it to current bioinputs and register them quickly and efficiently, but quickly, because small companies cannot take five years to write down a product,″ justified Rapela, who also presides over his biotechnology inputs company HMA4 SA.

The Argentine Chamber of Bioinputs has 35 full members, including small, medium, and large companies. From there, they work with Senasa, and according to the president, ″to quickly register products and simultaneously manage to unify the nomenclature at an international level.″

″We work with Bioprotection Global, which is a federation of chambers from 127 countries around the world where they try to combine nomenclatures with being able to take our products to other countries,″ he added.

Rapela highlighted the coordinated work of the chambers to differentiate agrochemicals from bioinputs, which needs joint criteria to collaborate with Senasa to generate sectoral regulations.

″The cameras will agree; we have to work together; it is necessary. We have to participate jointly, to transition between biological and chemical products in the field,″ he said in conclusion.

(Editing by Leonardo Gottems, reporter for AgroPages)