On June 8, 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs released the Announcement 269 to promulgate the scope, data requirements and enforcing details for the registration of pesticide under export-only purpose, a long-standing issue after China’s pesticide regulatory reform since 2017. The measure settled this time will help facilitate consolidation among Chinese agrochemical industry as SMEs would find it increasingly difficult to access such shortcut to overseas market.

The number of pesticides newly registered in China has plummeted from 4326 in 2018 to 294 in 2019 and one of the main causes is the elevated data requirements newly enforced. As an essential component of a dossier, product chemistry data is usually firstly reviewed by the competent authorities. In a training course organized by the Chinese Crop Protection Industry Association in June, Ms. Nancy Shen, technical supervisor of REACH24H, concluded the similarity and differences in the data requirements and exchanged her long years of experience in registering pesticides in China, EU and the United States.

In 2019, China MoARA approved 294 registration applications, down 95.6% from previous year of 4326. The decline was mainly due to the implementation of the elevated data requirements and the huge wave of merger and acquisition activities among the industry. Notably, of the 34 new active ingredients approved, 13 of them were developed by Chinese enterprises. Fungicide was the most registered product registered category and a total of 100 fungicides, based on 14 chemical and 8 biological active ingredients. 12 chemical and 7 biological active ingredients were firstly approved, of which 4 were exempted from TC/TK registration. ICAMA Registration Number Registrant Composition& formulation type Crop Disease Rate Method PD20190257 Syngenta AG 瑞士先正达作物保护有限公司 Pydiflumetofen 98% TC         PD20190267 Pydiflumetofen 200g/L SC wheat Fusarium head blight 50-65mL/Chinese acre spray rape Sclerotinia sclerotiorum 50-65mL/Chinese acre spray PD20.190268 Difenoconazole 125g/L+Pydiflumetofen 75g/L SC cucumber powdery mildew 40-50mL/Chinese acre spray watermelon powdery mildew 40-50mL/Chinese acre spray PD20190055 Mitsui Chemicals 日本三井化学AGRO株式会社 Penthiopyrad 99% TC         PD20190054 Penthiopyrad 20% SC cucumber powdery mildew 25-33mL

On 9 May 2020, China ICAMA solicits opinions on 7 draft guidelines for the housing care and testing of environmental organisms and environmental behavior.

On 30 April 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs (MoARA) has invited public feedback on pesticide MRLs to be integrated into the national standard, ”GB 2763 Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticide in Food”. The deadline for comments is 31 May 2020.

On April 9th, 2020, the Chinese National Pesticide MRL Review Committee announced a government procurement program for pesticide MRL regulation development. Successful tenderers will be required to complete a series of MRL-related research and field trials within the next year.

On 23 March 2020, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs released the Announcement 280 to designates 9 testing institutes for the regulatory study of pesticide products.

The Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs consulted on March 18, 2020 a daft list of active ingredients of biopesticides registered in China. The list includes 47 microbial ingredients, 38 biochemical ingredients and 26 botanical ingredients, which help applicants to distinguish biopesticides from chemical pesticides, as well as the effective implementation of “fast-track” registration.

On 18 Dec 2019, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued the “Plan for the Trial Implementation of Quality Certificate of Agricultural Products Nationwide”, aimed to promote safety and correctly use of pesticides, veterinary drugs and other agricultural inputs. Indigenous growers and farmer above designated size need to issue the quality certificate prior to placing their agricultural products on the market.

On 6 Aug 2019, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs disclosed a response to the suggestions and proposals regarding the extension of biopesticides from the NPC deputies. The ministry publicly clarified its policy support to biopesticides and hope this product category can play an expanded role in the national action plans of chemical pesticide substitution and agricultural quality enhancement. In this article, we will introduce China’s concrete efforts toward green development, but most importantly, we hope a contrastive analysis on the data gap between conventional pesticides and 3 typical biopesticides could help agrochemical companies to determine the tactical and effective strategic implementation for the market entry of biopesticides in China.