SSC for pesticide producers
As prerequisite for the official registration of pesticides, the chemical industry has to conduct field trials aimed to test the effect of the pesticides on crop physiology and health, pest/disease and environment. For each indication (combination crop type – pest/disease - pesticide) the registration authorities usually demand for field trials on 5-12 different sites, depending on the crop and the prior experiences with the active substance.
Each European country has its own registration authority that has to register pesticide products within its own borders. Efficiency and selectivity trial results achieved in any other country but its own are excepted only in case following prerequisites are met:
- Trials have been carried out conforming to a good experimental practice (GEP).
- The cropping conditions are comparable.
Consequently, field trials most of the time have to be repeated in each country in which the chemical company plans to market its new pesticide.
Thus, the chemical industry has to cope with very high costs in the stages prior to the rollout of a new pesticide to the market. Own staff teams have to plan, organise and conduct the trials, or agricultural consultants have to be ordered, especially in foreign countries.
With the proposed SSC service the number of country-specific trials currently required to prove the site suitability of a new pesticide can be reduced. At the end, the chemical industry benefits in saving costs and accelerating the rollout of the new products to the market. Agricultural consultants can refer the achieved cost and time benefits to their customers, the pesticide producers.
Concrete implementations of a SSC within a registration process are described here.
