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Article 6. Regulatory and technical requirements

  • 6.1 Governments should:
    • 6.1.1 introduce the necessary legislation for the regulation of pesticides and make provisions for its effective enforcement, including the establishment of appropriate educational, advisory, extension and health-care services, using FAO guidelines as far as possible (2, 29, 30). In so doing, they should take full account of local needs, social and economic conditions, levels of literacy, climatic conditions and availability of appropriate pesticide application and personal protective equipment;
    • 6.1.2 strive to establish pesticide registration schemes and infrastructures under which products can be registered prior to domestic use and ensure that each pesticide product is registered before it can be made available for use (29, 30, 31);
    • 6.1.3 conduct risk evaluations and make risk management decisions based on all available data or information, as part of the registration process;
    • 6.1.4 use the principles described in the Manual on Development and Use of FAO and WHO Specifications for Pesticides for determining equivalence of pesticides (21);
    • 6.1.5 promote the advantages of, and cooperate with other governments in, the establishment of harmonized (regionally or by groups of countries) pesticide registration requirements, procedures and evaluation criteria, taking into account appropriate, internationally agreed technical guidelines and standards, and where possible incorporate these standards into national or regional legislation (32, 33);
    • 6.1.6 establish a re-registration procedure to ensure the periodic review of pesticides, thus ensuring that prompt and effective measures can be taken if new information or data on the performance or risks indicate that regulatory action is needed;
    • 6.1.7 improve regulations in relation to collecting and recording data on import, export, manufacture, formulation, quality and quantity of pesticides;
    • 6.1.8 collect and record data on the import, export, manufacture, formulation, quality, quantity and use of pesticides in order to assess the extent of any possible effects on human health or the environment, and to follow trends in pesticide use for economic and other purposes;
    • 6.1.9 permit pesticide application and personal protective equipment to be marketed only if they comply with established standards (5, 8, 9);
    • 6.1.10 detect and control illegal trade in pesticides;
    • 6.1.11 when importing food and agricultural commodities, recognize good agricultural practices in countries with which they trade and, in accordance with recommendations of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, establish a legal basis for the acceptance of pesticide residues resulting from such good agricultural practices (19, 20) in a manner that is consistent with the WTO3 requirements so as not to lead to technical barriers to trade.
  • 6.2 Pesticide industry should:
    • 6.2.1 provide an objective pesticide data assessment together with the necessary supporting data on each product, including sufficient data to support risk assessment and to allow a risk management decision to be made;
    • 6.2.2 provide national regulatory authorities with any new or updated information that could change the regulatory status of the pesticide, as soon as it becomes available;
    • 6.2.3 ensure that the active ingredient and other ingredients of pesticide products being marketed correspond in identity, quality, purity and composition to the substances tested, evaluated and cleared for toxicological and environmental acceptability;
    • 6.2.4 ensure that active ingredients, and formulated products for pesticides for which international specifications have been developed, conform with the relevant FAO specifications for agricultural pesticides (22), and with WHO pesticide specifications for public health pesticides (23);
    • 6.2.5 verify the quality and purity of pesticides offered for sale;
    • 6.2.6 when problems occur, voluntarily take corrective action and, when requested by governments, help find solutions to difficulties;
    • 6.2.7 provide their national governments with clear and concise data on export, import, manufacture, formulation, sales, quality and quantity of pesticides.
  • 6.3 Technical assistance funding agencies, development banks and bilateral agencies should be encouraged to give high priority to requests for assistance from developing countries which do not yet have the facilities and expertise for pesticide management and control systems.

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