Proposed crop grouping rule eases regulatory burden & opens opportunities for minor crop producers.

Minor crop producers and consumers will be the primary beneficiaries of a recent EPA proposal to revise its pesticide tolerance crop grouping regulations, which allow the establishment of tolerances for multiple, related crops based upon data from a representative set of crops. The proposed revision, published in a May 23, 2007, Federal Register notice, would create a new crop group for edible fungi (mushrooms), expand existing crop groups by adding new commodities, establish new crop subgroups, and revise the representative crops in some groups.

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These proposed changes reflect the global competition for new or ethnic commodities. EPA expects these revisions to promote greater use of crop groupings for tolerance-setting purposes and, in particular, to assist in retaining or making available pesticides for minor crop uses. This is the first in a series of regulatory crop group updates.

The current proposal is based upon a petition submitted to EPA by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Inter-regional Research Project No. 4 (IR-4), along with the governments of Canada and Mexico, working with over 180 crop, agrichemical and regulatory experts representing more than 30 countries. The petition and the monographs supporting it have been included in the docket for the proposed rule, which can be found under docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2006-0766 at www.regulations.gov. Comments are due on or before July 23, 2007. The Federal Register notice announcing the proposal can be found at http://www.epa.gov/EPA-PEST/2007/May/Day-23/p9595.htm

AMI was instrumental in working with IR-4 in developing the proposal, with special expertise contributed by AMI members Christine Smith, Tina Ellor, Mark Wach and Dan Royse.

Laura Phelps, AMI

President

AMI Update is a regular column that covers topics relevant to members.