Serving as a universal basis for international legislation, the food safety standards under the Codex Alimentarius (CAC) have far reaching implications for resolving trade disputes among the WTO members. The Codex Committee on Pesticide Residue (CCPR) is responsible of establishing, revising and revoking pesticide MRLs in food and preparing schedule of MRLs setting ( also known as the Priority Lists) for evaluations by the JMPR (Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues), which play an important role of the MRL establishment. During the development of priority lists, stakeholders engaged in fierce negotiations to protect their interests.
Types of the Priority Lists
The Priority Lists classifies pesticide active ingredients into three types: “new pesticides”, “pesticides under periodic review” and the “pesticides under review”:
The “new pesticides” category refers to the pesticide that have not yet been reviewed by the Codex but are already registered in Members States for commercial utilization with its associated residue problems having already/might caused trade disputes or health concerns;
A 15 years’ periodic review system is adopted by the Codex for existing pesticides to ensure any new scientific information regarding its safety and efficacy are addressed. Depending on the availability of the new data and the risks of the pesticide, the date pledged by the interested parties and timeline of the last review the working groups will sort the pesticides and add them into the Priority Lists. If no pesticide companies or countries promise to provide new data sufficient for reevaluation, the pesticide would be requested for MRLs revocation in the next year’s CCPR session;
Apart from the initial review and the periodical review, unscheduled reevaluation will be implemented to keep pace with the state of the art, specifically in cases of newly obtained toxicological data implying risk to human health, or other newly obtained information which would overturn the original MRLs and other request or suggestion for review the established MRLs;
Distinct Standpoint on Different Types of Priority List
The MRLs established by the CCPR are generally accepted by all the Member Countries, but the “trade barriers/disputes” would occur when CCPR’s MRLs data is unavailable. For instance, Japan claimed that the food commodities containing the pesticide without national MRLs are allowed to be produced or imported if they meet the international standards. However, a 0.01mg/kg limit would be applied by its “Positive List System” if there is neither Japan MRLs nor international standard for the pesticide in the food commodities. Stricter MRLs in the global supply chain provide a strong motivation for growers to consider safer substitutes. Consequently, the Priority Lists embody the interests of the Agrochemical MNCs, the agricultural countries, and the industrialized countries.
The MNCs are actively involved with the “new pesticide”. Of the entire 24 active ingredients schedule as “new pesticides” during the FY2013 to FY2015, only 13 of them have been registered in ICAMA. Whereas all their CXL( codex limit) applications came from the MNCs such as BASF, Syngenta, Bayer CropScience, DuPont, Ishihara, Gowan, Chemtura, Nihon Nohyaku and Nippon Soda, which is illustrative of how MNCs from the industrial countries are paving the way for their newly invented products entrance to global markets by flexing financial muscle and technological advantages.
Debate focused on the “pesticides under periodic review” Unlike the situation for “new pesticides”, the MNCs are usually unwilling to provide data for the old pesticide and the pesticide would not be included into the periodic program of the Priority Lists. The CXLs for pesticides would be revoked after the 15 years, additionally the agricultural sector would be reluctant to use these pesticide as their agricultural produce would therefore be subject to different standard among different importing countries. It is understandable that MNCs are maximizing their profit by lobbying against “low-profit” generic products flooding the global crop protection market. There are 41 widely used pesticides that will soon be subject to periodic review. Only 16 of them have been listed into the Priority Lists and 18 of the 25 active ingredients which have failed to be included into the lists are still registered for commercial use in China. For the pesticide to be periodically reviewed, the industrialized countries and the agricultural countries are still debating whether the Codex should retain the MRLs for the pesticide when there is no new hazardous information, or to revoke the MRLs when there is no supportive data.
China’s Role in MRLs Establishment
As the largest pesticide production and agricultural country in the world, China cannot insulate itself from these issues. The residue scandals nationwide and numerous violations investigated by its food importers are providing the impetus for China’s greater involvement into these international affairs. Since China became a CCPR’s host country in 2006, it has increasingly played an integral role in balancing the interests among other stakeholders.
During the recent CCPR’s 45th Session, China supported the view that “an existing Codex MRL shall be maintained if no new risk concern are raised” but maintains that “member countries should keep the science-based principle in submitting proposals on maintaining an existing MRL”. It also suggested that the JMPR take full consideration of the data submission capacities of the developing countries and that additional data requirement should be based on the past findings of periodic re-evaluation. To ensuring the inclusion of indoxacarb for tea leaf into the priority list, China promised to submit residue trial data before 2014.
Though China does not directly adopt the Codex’ MRLs as its national food standard, the conclusions gained from the CCPR are accelerating its own development of MRLs. Shortly after the implementation of GB2763-2012, 1280 MRLs of 113 active ingredients have been issued for comments. 1259 of these MRLs were introduced from the Codex, which demonstrates China’s appetite to fulfill its goal of establishing 7000 MRLs by 2017.
This article is contributed by CCPR Secredtariat, ICAMA.
