With the changes in farming practices, planting patterns and increasing use of agrochemicals, there is an urgent need to reduce the risks caused by pesticide use. On 22 May 2014, China MoA issued a circular to the provincial agriculture bureau to increase monitoring of the risks of pesticide use. The Ministry will implement the monitoring campaign nationwide to record serious safety incidents involving pesticides, which will help the ministry to understand which pesticides post the greatest risks.
The Ministry classified the possible risks into four aspects: risks to agricultural work safety, risks to agricultural produce quality, risks to ecosystem and risks to human and animals. The Ministry also named several active ingredients which would be the major targets of the campaign.
The agricultural work safety monitoring will focus on crop damage and pest resistance caused by pesticide use. Local authorities should investigate the cause, crop variety, active ingredient(s), application time, application method, severity, symptom, area, loss and treatment associated with each crop damage incident. 2,4-D butylate, imazethapyr and sulfonylureas will be the major monitoring target in Northeast, Northwest and Northern area because these active ingredients can easily cause crop damage due to their high activity and long residual effect. Some pest or diseases have become resistant to certain pesticides and the Ministry will collect the information of active ingredients associated with this resistance, the target pests, and the volume of active ingredients used associated with the resistance problems. Imidacloprid, chlorpyrifos, abamectin, pyrethroids, amide insecticides, carbendazim, triadimefon, thiram, thiophanate-methyl, atrazine, acetochlor and glyphosate were named as pesticides which induce resistance.
As pesticide residues are significantly associated with the quality of agricultural products. The Ministry is to sort out the area, active ingredient and crop range of MRL violations. MoA reminded the local authority to focus on the residue problems of carbendazim and abamectin and the presence of methamidophos and carbofuran in food, which are produced when acephate and carbosulfan are degraded.
Ecological risk monitoring will focus on the impact to beneficial organisms and field ecology. The authorities will survey pesticide residue in soil, surface water, underground water, air and possible population change in non-target species caused by agrochemical use, which includes: bee, bird, fish, silkworm, natural enemy and other beneficial organisms. For example, the impact of neonicotinoids on bee and the amide insecticides on aquatic organism using imidacloprid and flubendiamide as reference pesticides.
The Ministry will also collect data on poisonings in human and animals caused by pesticides. The active ingredient, amount, symptom, and morbidity of poisoning incident will be recorded. As aluminum phosphide and paraquat pose significant risks these two active ingredients will be subject to the most monitoring.
China began accelerating the elimination of toxic pesticide after establishment of the pesticide reassessment office (see ChemLinked Agro Analysis on 17 Dec 2013). Seven active ingredients were banned or restricted late last year. The MoA started the consultation on candidate substances for pesticide reassessment (see ChemLinked News Release on 25 Mar 2014) early this year. If the Ministry finds sufficient evidence, pesticides with poor safety profiles that pose high risks are likely to be eliminated or restricted in China.
