On September 22, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued announcement 475 to announce the designation of 2 new testing institutes and expand the test scope of 2 existing labs, as well as amend administrative information of 5 existing labs.

On September 3, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued Announcement 468 to approve 26 new pesticides of 14 active ingredients first registered in China, including Nippon Soda’s Picarbutrazox fungicide, FMC’s Bixlozone, and a dozen biological pesticides developed by domestic companies.

On August 30, 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs issued announcement 464 to designate 2 labs for pesticide registration and amend administrative information of 5 existing labs.

On June 23, 2021, China MoARA issued Announcement 439 to specify the test scope of 5 testing institutes newly designated for pesticide registration.

According to China Central Radio and Television, the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs (MoARA) said it will start a 3-year food safety campaign to control pesticide and veterinary drug residue and 10 highly toxic pesticides which are still in use today will be banned batchwise by 2024, including Phorate, Isocarbophos, Omethoate, Carbofuran, Methomyl, Ethoprophos, Isofenphos-methyl, Aldicarb, Chlorpicrin and Aluminium phosphide.

Minor use pesticides are crop protection products targeting value specialty crops with small acreage, as well as controlling minor pests on major crops. Due to the low financial incentive for agrochemical companies to register their products alone, the lack of available pesticides led to illegal uses and crop loss in China until the regulatory reform. In 2017, China MoARA issued the ministry regulation, “Administrative Measures for the Registration of Pesticides”, constituting a characteristic mechanism consists of cost-sharing among multiple applicants, and an extrapolation scheme to use residue and efficacy data from crop groups, as well as the fast-track process introduced last year. In this article, we will introduce the scope, extrapolation, field trial and application procedures for minor-use pesticide registration. Dynamic Scope and Crop Grouping MoARA adopts constant readjustment to the pesticide, crop, and pests for minor uses and 3 lists were issued to help applicants to determine the scope: List of Minor Crops with Low Availability of Crop Protection Solution; List of Crop Groups for Extrapolated Use of Residue Data; List of Crop Groups for Extrapolated Use of Efficacy Data; The “List of Crop Grouping for Extrapolated Use of Residue Data” consists of crop group/sub-group, specific crops, and representative crops of the group. If the applicant completed the residue test of the representative crop and 1 or 2 specific crops with the same GAP (Good Agriculture Practice) condition, the data can be extrapolated to support the whole group. The number and test sites and selection of their locations shall conform to Annex 6 and Annex 9 of the “MoARA Announcement 2569- Data Requirements on Pesticide Registration” and the extrapolated use of residue data is inapplicable to post-harvest solutions. The “List of Crop Grouping for Extrapolated Use of Efficacy Data” specifies the representative crop/

On April 27, 2021, China MoARA issued Announcement 422 to designate 2 efficacy labs, 1 residue lab and 1 chemical lab for pesticide registration.

On April 14th and 15th 2021, the Chinese Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Affairs concluded the 5th session of the 9th Review Committee of Fertilizer Registration. The participants voted to approve 113 fertilizers and agreed to standardize the market entry procedures of secondary-element WSFs (Water-soluble fertilizers containing calcium and magnesium) and strengthen the review process of imported organic WSFs(also known as biostimulants) derived from marine food wastes.

On April 16, 2021, China MoARA released the ministerial inspection results of pesticide quality in 2003. The overall qualification rate was 96.2%, an increase of 7.6% from the previous year of 88.6%. 40% of the substandard pesticides were fake products containing no registered active ingredient or containing unregistered active ingredients.

On March 5, 2021, Chine promulgated the national food safety standard, “GB 2763-2021 Maximum Residue Limits for Pesticides in Food”, which is due to take effect on September 3. According to MoARA, GB 2763-2021 consists of 10,092 MLRs for 564 pesticides in 376 food categories, which completed the goal of establishing 10,000 statutory pesticide MRLs by the end of 2020.