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Ag official wants equal access to Canadian pesticides
NEWS HIGHLIGHT
Ag official wants equal access to Canadian pesticides
In something of a reversal of past disputes regarding access to pesticides, an official with North Dakota's Agriculture Commission is calling for US farmers to have equal access to pesticides for sale in Canada under the Grower Requested Own Use (GROU) program.
October 28, 2008 By Agri-Link
October 28, 2008
Bismarck, ND — According to a story from the weekly Agri-Link news clipping service, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is being urged to create a new program that would allow US farmers easier access to EPA-approved pesticides available for sale in Canada. North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson recently said Canadian growers have access to lower-priced US pesticides through Canada’s Grower Requested Own Use (GROU) program created by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency in 2007.
"A parallel program to GROU does not exist to allow U.S. producers to purchase and relabel lower-priced Canadian pesticides that are shown to be identical to products registered in the U.S.," Johnson said in a letter to EPA officials. "This is fundamentally unfair since it puts U.S. growers at an economic disadvantage."
Under the GROU program, Canadian growers are allowed to purchase certain pesticides in the United States, relabel those products with Canadian pesticide labels, and import those products into Canada for their own use.
Twelve US pesticides are covered under the GROU, and Canadian growers may have access to more than 20 eligible pesticides in the program by the 2009 growing season.
"From a regulatory perspective, it makes no sense to disallow US stakeholders to access lower-priced Canadian pesticides when it can be demonstrated that those products are identical to formulations registered in the United States," Johnson said.
