New approvals show changes are at work in Canadian pest control regulation says industry

Thursday, July 18, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Bayer CropScience’s label expansion of a fungicide and an insecticide is a direct result of improvements in the Canadian regulatory environment, the company says in a recent news release.

Craig Hunter, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association crop protection and research specialist, agrees. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which regulates pest control products in Canada, has dramatically changed its approach to a value assessment rather than just focusing on efficacy, he says.

Using the value assessment enables PMRA to look at data from other places and if the product is already registered for “that use and published by (American) state governments in their crop protection guides,” he says. Research showing the product’s effectiveness in another country under similar conditions is also accepted under the value assessment approach.

“All of those pieces go into a value package so they (PMRA) just don’t have to have a stack of Canadian data,” Hunter notes. This approach makes the regulatory process more flexible and “I’m fully supportive of it.”

The Canadian regulatory environment now allows U.S. data to be submitted in a Canadian registration, Bayer says in its July 11 press release.

The two products are: Aliette fungicide and Movento insecticide. These products provide Canadian fruit and vegetable growers with additional ways to protect their crops against diseases and insects, the release says.

Aliette is now registered for grapes (wine and table) to control downy mildew, spinach to suppress downy mildew and white rust, and cranberries to control phytophthora root rot, the release says. The new label expansion means Aliette can be used on the whole brassica leafy vegetable crop group instead of only broccoli and bok choy.

Movento insecticide provides two-way systemic control against sucking pests, the release says. The product is extremely effective on hard-to-control sucking pests, such as aphids, psyllids and thrips. Through the minor use registration process, the Movento label has now been expanded to include:

• Crop Group 3 bulb vegetables against onion thrip larvae.
• Crop Group 13B bushberries and Crop Group 13H low growing berries against aphids, blueberry maggot, blueberry gall midge and cranberry tipworm and for lecanium scale suppression.
• Globe artichoke and sweet corn against aphids.

Bayer CropScience is a global company specializing in health care, agricultural products and high technology materials. BF