He writes:
This week I am joining more than 200 policy-makers, regulators, industry and grower representatives from over 35 countries with the aim of ‘filling the crop protection toolbox for growers’. We’re all attending the third Global Minor Use Summit in Montreal to review, discuss, implement guidelines and set future work priorities to improve the availability of crop protection solutions for minor use crops, and to harmonise this work globally.
The term ‘minor use’ relates to low acreage crops, or minor uses on large acreage crops. While termed ‘minor’, these crops are of major importance in terms of value, and also in terms of their contribution to diets as they often include fruits and vegetables. Looking at the example of the EU, the value of these crops is €70 billion and they account for 22% of the annual value of total crop output. But this happens on just 3% of the EU cultivated area.
The high costs of regulatory approval of plant protection products means there’s often insufficient return on investment for the crop protection industry to justify undertaking the work required to register and maintain products for minor uses. But these uses include crop protection needs that are essential for production – so on a country-by-country and global basis it presents problems for producers through a lack of authorized options to control pests and diseases.
It also creates export and trade problems, with trade barriers often occurring due to a lack of, or differences in, acceptable Maximum Residue Levels on produce.
The Global Minor Use Summits address these issues. It’s a tall order. But the summits have a good track record of driving forward work in this area. The last day will also be taken up with the Second Global Minor Use Priority Setting Workshop, which will tackle in detail grower’s priorities for pest and disease control, including the needs of UK growers.
With participants from North America, Latin America, Asia, Australasia and Africa, the summit also provides a great opportunity to meet with the people dealing with pesticide legislation around the world, at a time when the UK it set to leave the EU and develop its own regulatory framework for pesticides.