OECD Begins New Pesticide Activity

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) will launch a three-year Activity on Pesticides in January 1994 to help countries in assessing and reducing pesticide risks. The Pesticides Activity and its projects will be directed by a Pesticide Forum composed primarily of government regulators from the OECD countries, but will also include representatives from the pesticide industry, from non-governmental organisations including farm and environmental groups, and from other international organisations (e.g. European Commission, WHO, FAO, UNEP/IRPTC, and IPCS). By Jeanne Richards.

The new Pesticides Activity marks a significant commitment from the OECD, which pioneered work on codes of conduct relating to pesticides.  It will have the three major goals of:

•   promoting sound, consistent national pesticides registration procedures;

•   sharing the work of re-registration of old pesticides;

•   reducing risks to human health and the environment associated with pesticide  use.

The Pesticide Activity is being initiated at the request of OECD Member countries, which are currently implementing an array of pesticide programmes. Many countries are in the process of re-registering, or reviewing, the hundreds of old pesticides that were licensed years—or even decades ago—and are still in use today. Re-registration entails the review of new data, and often a re-review of old data, to determine whether a pesticide meets modern standards for health and environmental safety. A number of countries are developing separate data requirements for registration of ‘biological’ pesticides whose pesticidal action tends to be more specific to the target pest than that of the chemical pesticides, and less likely to pose health or environmental risks. Biological pesticides include, for example, micro-organisms, pheromones, and natural insect and plant growth regulators. Some countries are also investigating ways to encourage farmers to adopt practices like integrated pest management that reduce reliance on pesticides.
    OECD’s new Pesticide Activity will bring the Member countries together to address these issues and others. By working together more closely, the countries believe they can accomplish their individual goals for pesticide management more efficiently and effectively, while minimising the possibility for trade disputes caused by current differences in legislation or regulation, and broadening their understanding of each other’s pesticide programmes.
    The initial thrust of the OECD Activity will be to increase the ‘harmonization’, or commonalty, of data requirements, testing methods and review processes used in pesticide registration. The Pesticide Activity will build on a one-year project begun in June 1992 which identified priorities for the development and revision of pesticide test guidelines, created an inventory of Members countries’ current data requirements for registering chemical pesticides, and begin work to collect and compare information on countries’ pesticide re-registration processes.
    The Pesticide Activity will concentrate initially in five areas.

Test guidelines for conventional chemical pesticides
Based on the results of last year’s survey of priorities, OECD will begin work on test guidelines needed for pesticides. This work will be incorporated into OECD’s ongoing Test Guidelines Programme which, since 1981, has developed internationally-harmonised guidelines for the tests that are used to evaluate risks to human health and the environment. Adoption of these guidelines by OECD countries increases the general acceptance of the test data that are derived and provides a common basis for countries’ evaluations of chemical risks. Adoption of the guidelines also reduces the need for duplicate testing—and additional use of laboratory animals—that results from different testing requirements. Work on test guidelines during the first year of the Pesticide Activity will focus on three areas: environmental fate, ecotoxicology, and human health exposure.

Data requirements for registration of biological pesticides
During the first few months of the Pesticide Activity, OECD will complete a survey of the Member countries’ current regulatory approaches to biological pesticides, including products derived through genetic engineering. The survey will focus primarily on data requirements for the registration of micro-organisms, but will also gather general information on other types of biological pesticides and on policies and programmes adopted in OECD countries to encourage the development and use of these products. The survey is intended to assist Member countries and international organisations that are developing regulatory schemes for biological pesticides. It will also assist efforts to harmonise data requirements for registration of biological pesticides and will help direct future work in the development of test guidelines.

Pesticide re-registration
During its first year, the Pesticide Activity will complete the project begun in 1992 to collect and compare information on countries’ pesticides re-registration processes. The project is comparing data reviews done by OECD countries for each of seven widely used pesticides in order to determine where major similarities and differences occur, to identify the basis of these differences, and to recommend future work towards harmonisation. The long-term goal of the project is to develop common procedures for conducting data reviews and characterising hazards, so that OECD countries can share the work of re-registration by co-operating in the data review process. The pesticides included in this project are amitraz, dinocap, diazinon, iprodione, endosulfan and pyridate.

Environmental hazard and risk assessment methods
The purpose of this project is to increase international harmonisation of hazard and risk assessment methods. OECD will take the lead role in the environmental area at the same time that it continues to co-operate in undertaking projects led by other organisations in the human health area. This project will not be limited to pesticides, but will be done in the broader context of chemical hazard and risk assessment. A workshop to review methods already available and to recommend specific activities that might be undertaken by OECD will be held in late 1994.

Risk reduction
This reduction programme will begin during the first year of the Pesticide Activity with a survey of OECD countries’ current pesticide risk reduction activities. The survey will cover all types of programmes and policies used to reduce risk from individual pesticides, to reduce pesticide use as a whole, or to encourage adoption of integrated pest management methods. A report of the information collected will be distributed widely for the purpose of informing countries of each other’s activities. The report will also be used as a starting point for a workshop in late 1994 to identify an OECD role in pesticide risk reduction.
    At the end of the first year of the Pesticide Activity, the Pesticide Forum will meet to review the results of the first five projects and agree on work for 1995 and 1996.

The OECD is an inter-governmental organisation grouping 24 industrialised countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States of America. The Commission of the European Communities also takes part in OECD work, and Hungary and Mexico will participate in the Pesticide Activity. The OECD provides a forum where its Member countries discuss issues of common interest and co-ordinate and harmonise their national policies.

Jeanne Richards works for the Environmental Health and Safety Division of the OECD.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No.21,September 1993, pages 3-4]