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AgVetLink February 2005

Maximum Residue Limit (MRL) update for the new year

Last year‘s MRL process resulted in the smooth setting of many MRLs, including some high profile chemicals. We hope to build on this success in 2005 with a number of changes to be made to the MRL standard. Some brief information on what is planned for this year follows.

New look

The MRL table will receive a makeover to make it easier to reference and to understand. This will be done by including two new columns: one for Chemical Abstract Service (CAS) numbers and the other for a detailed residue definition. We hope this will come into effect by the middle of the year.

MRLs to be removed?

In reformatting the MRL standard, we identified three active ingredients (Demeton-S-methyl, Isazophos and Vinclozolin) that have not been registered in New Zealand for five years. We will be consulting on removing the MRLs for these chemicals.

Review

To bring the MRL table into line with our new policy on the use of the default MRL (see October 2004 AgVetLink), we have reviewed the MRLs for 40 pesticide active ingredients where no formal MRL was set (and therefore relied on the default MRL).

We have determined that 39 of these compounds can have MRLs set at the Limit of Quantification and one can be exempted. We hope to consult upon our proposed changes to these MRLs during April. We will also contact affected registrants to notify them of our proposed changes.

In addition, another 40 plant compounds with no formal MRLs will be reviewed with the intention of consulting on specific MRLs in the second half of 2005.

More MRL setting

With the ease that MRLs were set in 2004, we now feel that the process is well established. Twenty-eight new MRLs or MRL exemptions were included in our standard last year. In 2005 we hope to replicate the success of this process. We will again consult on our new MRL or exemption proposals four times during the year. We expect the first of these regular MRL amendment rounds to start in late February. Approximately ten changes to the MRL standard are likely to be included in that round.

Dietary Intake Project

In the October 2004 AgVetLink, we referred to the start of a project to manage dietary intake of plant compounds so that they would comply with potential daily exposures (PDEs) through food. PDEs may be set by ERMA under the HSNO Act midway through 2005, and will take the place of the acceptable daily intake (ADI) figures that we have used in the past.

Soon after the October AgVetLink article was released, we consulted with all affected registrants on the project and asked them to provide us with relevant data. We received many replies to our letter and we wish to thank those registrants for the large amount of support they have provided.

The responses we received, plus a significant amount of research and development, have enabled us to refine our estimates of dietary intakes of plant compounds through food. We have whittled an original list of 17 chemicals that appeared to exceed the PDE_(food) down to nine. This project will continue throughout 2005 and we are confident that, of these nine remaining compounds, all will fit within the likely ERMA PDEs.