Panel on General Standards on Efficacy Evaluation

Paris, 2008-03-06/07

The 8th meeting of the Panel on General Standards on Efficacy Evaluation took place at EPPO Headquarters, in Paris, on 2008-03-06/07. The emphasis was put on finalizing the extrapolation tables for effectiveness and crop safety of insecticides, fungicides and herbicides for vegetable brassicas and pome/stone fruit. To better understand these tables, an internal guidance document on the format and content of tables for extrapolation was prepared. This document is also to be consulted when new tables are drafted. A document listing all crops that should be encompassed by the tables for vegetable brassicas and pome/stone fruit was also developed. It should complement the tables. The extrapolation tables were considered as the best available tables at this point in time and as such they will be sent to countries for comments.

The Panel was informed about the research done so far regarding the project of drafting a standard on “comparable climates on a global level”.  Regarding the development of a standard on the subject of mutual recognition, the Panel will wait for the outcome of an EU working group dealing with the problem of mutual recognition and drafting a guidance document. A long discussion about the impact of draft EU legislation concerning plant protection products took place. The focus of the debate surrounded the modification of the Directive 91/414 to accommodate comparative assessment and the use of hazard based cut-off criteria as proposed by the EU Parliament, which may affect the range and diversity of plant protection products needed for a sustainable crop protection and effective resistance management. The Panel supported in general the views expressed by the Resistance Action Committees in a document presented at the meeting (about chemical diversity being a crucial element in effective resistance management), but recalled that it would need further study by the EPPO Resistance Panel and the Working Party on Plant Protection Products.  

The next meeting of the Panel on General Standards will take place in 2009-03-12/13, in Vienna at the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (AGES), at the kind invitation of Mr Kurtz.