The production and use of crop protection products in Australia is highly regulated to assure safety for users, consumers and the environment. Our regulatory system is world-leading in the protection it offers, but highly inefficient in the way it operates.
National harmonisation of the different state approaches to pesticide regulation is crucial to provide applicants with certainty about how their application will be assessed, and to ensure Australian farmers get timely access to the latest and most innovative crop protection solutions being used by their overseas competitors.
Inconsistent requirements across the states and territories for pesticide use – including licensing, training, access and record keeping – make it difficult and unnecessarily expensive for farmers to comply. Inconsistent training, licensing and use restrictions establish unnecessary barriers to interstate trade, while potentially undermining the assumptions made by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), when originally assessing the product.
CropLife Australia has been campaigning for nearly a decade for the Australian, state and territory governments to address these deficiencies. We welcomed the 2008 joint-government decision to develop a single national framework to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of pesticide regulation in Australia. The National Agvet System Policy Taskforce (link) is now undertaking this work.
Despite five years of collaboration between governments, industry and farm chemical users to develop a suite of reforms, more work is still needed to implement reforms that improve consistency in pesticide regulatory approaches across jurisdictions.
Refer to our submissions below for more information about best practice regulation and national harmonisation.
Comments Off on APVMA Performance: Improvement, But Still A Long Way To Go
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) performance statistics for the 2017 September quarter, released yesterday, highlights the continued poor timeframe performance for registration of crop protection products, reaffirming the need for urgent operational reforms.
Matthew Cossey, Chief Executive Officer of CropLife Australia, said the APVMA’s performance improvement in crop protection product registrations from last quarter’s all-time low of just 24 percent finalised within the statutory timeframe for the June quarter, to 36 percent for last quarter is welcomed simply because the numbers are at least finally heading in the right direction.
“The latest performance statistics indicate that practical efforts by APVMA management and staff have helped start the recovery process for timeliness of crop protection product registrations, however there is still a long way to go to reach what could be considered acceptable performance”.
“While the small improvement in completing applications for crop protection products within statutory timeframes and improvement of the total number of applications finalised is welcomed, significant improvement is required to at least achieve similar performance to that reported this time last year,” said Mr Cossey.
“The APVMA’s continuous failure to meet its statuary obligated timeframes is unacceptable and comes at a massive cost to the plant science industry and the nation’s farming sector.”
“These performance statistics reinforce the importance of the Government developing a comprehensive package of regulatory reforms to support the internal improvements being undertaken by the APVMA and enable the efficient and effective regulation of the critical crop protection products Australian farmers need to produce the nation’s food, feed and fibre while the APVMA transitions to Armidale,” said Mr Cossey.
“It is imperative that Australian farmers gain access to important agricultural chemical products in a timely manner. Until the APVMA can consistently finalise applications for crop protection products within obligated timeframes, Australian farmers will continue to be at a disadvantage to their international competitors. Australian farmers are already losing hundreds of millions of dollars of possible improved productivity due to the delayed registration of critical tools.”
“CropLife Australia looks forward to working with the APVMA and the Government to deliver the reforms necessary for genuine regulatory efficiency,” concluded Mr Cossey.
Comments Off on Opinion piece | Rational assessment, not sensationalised headlines, improves regulatory systems
Australia has a globally recognised and acclaimed regulatory system for agricultural chemicals. These important tools for the nation’s farming sector are some of the most highly regulated products of any industry. It is crucial that Australia maintains and protects its robust, independent, scientific and evidence-based regulatory system for agricultural chemicals and veterinary medicines, and equally important that we undertake critical assessment to identify and implement system improvements.
Recent media reporting on contamination issues with these products has instead been more about sensationalised headlines and factually inaccurate articles that overstate and exaggerate the situation using unnamed and unverifiable sources. While the reporting may be in good faith and have reasonable intentions, these articles are unfortunately misleading and deceptive. Hardly the hallmarks of professional and intellectually robust journalism.
Media commentary that sensationalises and misreports on the compliance activities of the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), irresponsibly misrepresents the reality of the regulatory system and unnecessarily undermines public confidence in a world-class scheme. It is also reporting that seems to be deliberately obtuse to the high-level regulatory matrix to which agricultural chemicals are subjected.
Genuine fact-based critiquing of the APVMA’s highly regulated system of registration, compliance and enforcement on crop protection products is encouraged as it can lead to beneficial regulatory improvements. But when it is driven by the media wanting to spin a good yarn or engage in activist style campaigns it does a disservice to Australian farmers, exporters and the broader community. More importantly, it undermines the foundation and argument for genuine improvement in the system.
The effective and targeted voluntary withdrawal and recall of non-compliant product resulting from retained batch sample analysis is an example of the Australian regulatory system for agricultural chemicals working properly. The suggestion, as was reported in the media, that the voluntary withdrawal and recall process is somehow ‘self-regulation’ or a ‘quiet recall’ because it didn’t include a webpage notice, undermines the proactive nature of the process. A process that proved its value to the regulatory system utilising strong communication channels, involving hundreds of direct notifications and an extraordinary effort to have product removed from point of sale.
Australian consumers and our trading partners should take confidence in Australia’s agricultural chemical regulatory system and its ability to withdraw and recall non-compliant product effectively and efficiently, on the rare occasion it is required. They can also take confidence from the professionalism of our farmers and the effective and safe use of these products.
The reputable industry goes above and beyond to ensure their products are safe, effective and consistent with the registered specifications of the product. Exaggerating to create unnecessary concern only diminishes and undermines the regulatory system, which then impacts the regulators’ ability to respond to serious offences.
It is important to understand the differences between voluntary and compulsory recalls and associated APVMA compliance provisions. A voluntary withdrawal and recall is only able to be used when the APVMA determines there is no risk to the safety of human health and the environment from a product that does not comply with its registered specifications. Compulsory recalls on the other hand, are for products that have been deemed to be unsafe. The APVMA’s provisions for a compulsory recall includes public notification, direct email notification, immediate cessation of sales and active return from users.
Articles trying to compare a compulsory recall of a food product that has been deemed to be unsafe, such as imported frozen berries, to a voluntary withdrawal of a crop protection product that has been deemed not to pose a health or safety risk, is mischievous or concerningly obtuse. The APVMA’s compliance provisions for compulsory recalls are above and beyond the process undertaken by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand for the recall of contaminated food, and far beyond any measures available for consumer goods by the ACCC.
CropLife, as the national peak industry body for the plant science sector, continually seeks improvements, both in effectiveness and efficiency of the agricultural chemical regulatory system. Our advocacy in 2012 seeking greater APVMA compliance powers to tackle the problem of illegal and poor quality pesticides resulted in the APVMA gaining a substantial suite of new enforcement and compliance powers, the use of which have recently been on display.
Any adjustments to the regulatory system need to be undertaken on the basis of rational and fact-based assessment with the purpose of delivering better outcomes for Australian agriculture, which is something we have been doing for years and will continue to do in partnership with farmers and government.
Comments Off on ANAO Assessment of APVMA Performance is a Call to Urgent Action
The national peak industry body for the plant science sector today welcomed the Australian National Audit Office’s (ANAO) detailed and considered performance audit report on the implementation of pesticide and veterinary medicine regulatory reform tabled today. It highlights the serious failure of the reform processes to deliver real regulatory efficiencies and confirms industry’s long-standing call that urgent action is needed.
CropLife Australia’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Matthew Cossey, said “this ANAO report confirms that the regulatory reform imposed on the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) has failed to improve efficiency. The report’s main findings reflect industry’s justified criticism and are best summed up on page eight of the report that ‘…overall, the regulatory burden on industry has not been reduced since the reforms were implemented.’”
“While there are clear failings at the APVMA to properly implement reform, the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources also needs to take responsibility and start developing regulation that can be effectively implemented,” said Mr Cossey.
“CropLife acknowledges there were promising signs emerging in 2016, with timeframe performance for assessing pesticide applications reaching 83 per cent in the September quarter. The report, however, confirms that there has been a massive blowout in the number of overdue assessments since the September quarter while at the same time the total number of applications significantly fell. This should ring alarm bells about a loss of confidence by industry in the unnecessarily timely and expensive Australian regulatory system, which means farmers will miss out on the latest tools to which their international competitors have access.”
“The Department imposed the previous government’s 2014 reform package on the APVMA without realistic implementation timeframes or sufficient funding, and this has also directly contributed to this poor assessment by the ANAO. It is clear the Department and the Regulator need to work better together to improve the implementation of regulatory reforms.”
“It is about time the Department and the APVMA deliver tangible improvements to the regulation of agricultural chemicals in Australia, otherwise the hundreds of millions of dollars every year in lost productivity currently experienced due to regulatory inefficiency, will continue and worsen into the future,” said Mr Cossey.
“CropLife and our members have constructively engaged for years in all the previous reform agendas and proposed specific initiatives to improve the system. Despite our frustration with the slow process and lack of proper implementation of these reforms, we remain committed to continuing to work constructively with Government to ensure Australia has the world’s best agricultural chemical regulator.”
“The cost burden of the APVMA falls on the regulated entities – the developers, manufacturers and registrants of innovative crop protection products – through a cost recovery process. Delays and inefficiencies end up adding unnecessary costs to crucial agricultural input products which is a cost that ends up on the farm gate.”
“It is clear that urgent action is needed and it is important that future reforms must also be appropriately funded by Government. It is, however, important that the report findings are well understood, considered in context, and not sensationalised or underplayed for the benefit of any one certain political agenda.”
“The importance of this regulator maintaining its technical competencies whilst significantly improving efficiencies is crucial to the plant science industry and the nation’s farming sector. It’s simply time for the development and implementation for real reform that delivers genuine improvements to the regulator’s efficiency,” concluded Mr Cossey.
Comments Off on CropLife slams ABC for misleading report on glyphosate
CropLife Australia, an advocacy body for the agricultural chemical and biotechnology sector, has blasted the ABC for its recent report on local council’s use of chemicals with the active ingredient glyphosate.