Improving crop protection and regulatory processes for a sustainable future

Crop protection tools are an essential part of modern horticulture. They are crucial to food availability and affordability, ensuring the production of good quality food that is not affected by pests and diseases, and reducing crop losses that contribute to large amounts of food waste.

There has to be a balance in regulating these tools. These are chemicals that are designed to kill or control pests, diseases or weeds. It is critical that they do not have a broader impact on human health or ecology. We have come a long way in the 60 years since Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring and we do not want to go back to those days.

At the same time, regulations need to be flexible and pragmatic to support the introduction of new active substances to the New Zealand market and enable the introduction of new chemicals, encouraging the development of safer, less environmentally harmful but still effective products.

By the time a chemical reaches the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) for regulatory review, it often has millions of dollars of testing behind it. This testing helps to find out what adverse effects it might have on humans, what residues it might leave in food, and how it might migrate and affect the environment. This in turn helps to find out what controls regulators need to put on its use so that it can be used safely and effectively. As well as processing new products, the EPA and NZFS are also responsible for making sure that chemicals that may have been registered decades ago are still fit for use.

As a former regulator, I know that the scientists completing regulatory approval processes are dedicated, highly competent, and passionate about what they do to ensure the safety of these products for the community and the environment. They work in a field where the modeling and assessment required is increasingly complex to keep up with the latest understanding of risk.

For example, society is increasingly moving towards a circular economy, seeking to rescue, reuse, recycle or upcycle waste and reduce the use of virgin materials. This has led to a need to better understand how chemicals behave in waste and whether they can lead to contamination – it is no longer an assumption that they will disappear into landfill.

In 2022, the Parliamentary Environment Commissioner recommended that New Zealand regulators develop tools and collect data to model and record the use and life cycle of the chemicals they approve. However, this will mean additional work, training and maintaining the unique skills needed to conduct these assessments. Without sufficient funding, this could mean longer times to regulatory approvals in New Zealand.

In 2023, the EPA commissioned Sapere to prepare a report that found that a lack of funding had led to extended application deadlines. Reduced funding also meant that some of the current models the EPA uses to assess environmental risks from chemicals are outdated, difficult to use and no longer fit for purpose.

The government has announced that the Department of Regulation will review the complex processes for approving new agricultural and horticultural products. Regulation Minister David Seymour said the review would look at the “red tape” involved in accessing products that have been approved by other OECD countries.

I personally hope that the approach to the review will also take into account the need for a larger budget for regulators in this space. Continued, ongoing funding is required to enable them to use the latest science and innovation to reflect current understanding and ensure a robust but timely assessment process, for example by updating the ecological risk assessment models they use.

To ensure long-term sustainability, these agencies will need to recruit more scientists in toxicology, ecotoxicology, chemistry and risk assessment. We have come to rely on bringing in foreign experts (including myself early in my career), but it would be better for the long-term resilience of our industry if more funding went into the New Zealand university system to train and develop our own experts.

The pressures on the agriculture and horticulture sectors are absolutely real, and the regulatory process must support these sectors to innovate and change through the use of new tools. At the same time, we must consider the new and evolving challenges that regulators themselves face and support them to effectively use the latest scientific and assessment tools.

In addition to the objectives set out in the review, improved funding for the work of regulators would support innovation in crop protection tools and facilitate the process of bringing essential products available overseas to the New Zealand market.

Source: hortnz.co.nz