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AgVetLink December 2003

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Standards update

Standard for Vertebrate Toxic Agents

The ACVM Group has drafted a standard for vertebrate toxic agents (VTAs) for public consideration. VTAs are agricultural compounds used to kill vertebrate pests such as possums, rodents, ferrets and stoats, birds and fish.

The VTAs include all the products presently classed as vertebrate pest control (VPC) products specified in the Pesticides (Vertebrate Pest Control) Regulations 1983. These Regulations will be repealed in 2004, and the draft standard must be in place with appropriate conditions on the registrations of relevant products before the Regulations disappear.

The ACVM Group has renamed the class from VPC products to VTAs to make it clear that it includes all products designed to kill vertebrates.

The standard introduces a new classification system and describes the kinds of conditions that would be applied to each class. It also brings the full range of active ingredients under a single regulatory regime.

It includes an intention to approve traders in VTAs as well as to maintain the existing approval for users of certain kinds of products.

While the ACVM Group recognises that there will be controls imposed on VTAs under the HSNO Act, the Group considers that there may be a continuing need for a level of control under the ACVM Act as well. The ACVM Group also wishes to avoid any loss of control in the interim between when the Regulations disappear and when ERMA New Zealand has established an operational control programme.

The Group is working with ERMA New Zealand to ensure that the separate regulatory programmes are complementary, compatible and avoid any duplication.

The draft standard can be viewed on the website (www.nzfsa.govt.nz/acvm). If you have any comments on the draft, send them by 1 February 2004 to:

Chris Boland 
Programme Manager (Technical Policy) 
New Zealand Food Safety Authority 
Post Office Box 2835 Wellington, New Zealand 
Email: christopher.boland@nzfsa.govt.nz

Standard for Own Use

The ACVM Group has drafted a standard for own use of agricultural compounds.

It will replace the Code of Practice for Own Use of Agricultural Compounds, which was approved under section 28 of the ACVM Act a few years ago. This relates to an exemption from registration in Schedule 1 of the ACVM Regulations 2001. The exemption and the code did not put any limitations on what kinds of substances could be used by persons on their own plants and animals on their own land.

Recent problems with the use of technical grade zinc bacitracin (an antibiotic active ingredient) as an agricultural compound have highlighted the fact that the code of practice should have excluded the use of certain substances or kinds of substances without registration.

The draft standard now puts limitations on what kinds of compounds can be used under the exemption in Schedule 1. It describes the circumstances under which own use would be acceptable. It also notes that, for the purposes of the exemption in Schedule 1, the standard would be approved as a code of practice under section 28. This will provide the statutory basis for excluding some substances from own use.

The draft standard can be viewed on the website. If you have any comments on the draft standards send them to Chris Boland (address above) by 1 February 2004.

 

Limited period registrations

The ACVM Group is putting in place the ‘limited period registrations’ indicated in the last edition of AgVetLink. The initial period of a registration will be for up to three years in order to cover the situation until the HSNO Act is fully implemented.

In the intervening time the ACVM Group will be considering arguments from registrants for periods of up to five years for certain groups of products.