On the 13th, 14th and 15th of March, the 17th Plant Health Symposium took place in Seville, where, among others, the following regulatory topics, under the European and national scope, on Plant Health were discussed by representatives of our Authorities and the Industry:
- Dr. Tomás García, scientist at IEGD-CSIC and CEIGRAM, highlighted the importance of the concept “One Health” since the fact that human, plant, animal, and environmental health’s are linked, should not be underestimated and are affected by globalization, tourism, new pests and diseases, among other factors. Likewise, he considered that the legislation that affects products for the control of pests and diseases should be subject to risk-proportionated actions, since the precautionary principle is sometimes used disproportionately and without evidence to support certain measures. Finally, he concluded that the transition towards agroecology can only take place with the involvement of all actors in the supply chain.
- Richard Ramón, representative of the European Commission, focused his presentation on food security and its sustainability, highlighting 14 global megatrends, as the forces that will ultimately cause the change, among which we can mention climate change, degradation of the environment, the limitation of resources, the increase in consumption, among others. He raised the question about how we are going to increase agricultural production that is sustainable and referred us to the Canadian model that has focused its efforts on precision agriculture, biotechnology and digitalization, without a doubt, a model that is worth incorporating into our agricultural practices. He also highlighted the creation of an Observatory of the needs of the primary sector to address the changes that are necessary to avoid unfair practices that harm the sector.
- Valentín Almansa, General Director of Agricultural Production Health, began his speech with the news about the cancellation of the new proposal for the sustainable use of pesticides, a decision very close to the vote of the new European Parliament, and continued his presentation with the results obtained after 2 years of analysis of sales data of (bio)pesticides in Spain. He highlighted that the largest sale, which we could compare to use (there is no data on use, only purchases/sales), corresponds to fungicides and acaricides, to a lesser extent herbicides and insecticides and that this pattern is repeated in the different Regions.
- Emilio Rodríguez, representative of the EU Commission (JRC), commented on the relevance of the fact that, in a context of new emerging pests and diseases, we have fewer products to control them, which is why he focuses on the effort to achieve plant varieties with long-lasting resistance to these pests and diseases. To do this, he focused his presentation on the techniques that are being worked on such as cisgenesis and directed mutagenesis (CRISPR among others). He highlighted the pros and cons of gene modification in plant species, such as the lower use of phytosanitary products as they are more resistant varieties, but with a reduction in the yield of the crop that they are working to improve.
- Dr. José Luis Alonso, representative of the INIA-CSIC, focused his presentation on the integrated pest control as the best pest and disease control strategy, where all types of controls/strategies have a place, always starting with prevention with appropriate agro-practices, followed by products of more natural origin and ultimately, applying chemical control measures when previous therapies have not been effective. Regarding future legislative changes, he reported that they are working on an accelerated procedure for more natural products, something that has been demanded for years by the Biocontrol sector. Efforts are also focusing on the definition of Biopesticides so that, throughout Europe, the same type of products are referred to when this term is used, as well as extending the approval time for low-risk active substances to reduce bureaucracy to administration level. New guidelines will be published by the EU Commission on microbial consortia, RNA-based products, plant extracts, EPPO standards on low-risk risk assessments. For its part, EFSA is working on a new guide to select low-risk active substances from the initial phases, not like now when it is concluded during the process.
- Jacobo Herrero, representative of IBMA Spain, explained to the attendees the proposal that the Association will present to the new European Commission after the cancellation of the new sustainable use proposal where they request: a clear definition of Biocontrol, a working group to evaluate these requests of Biocontrol, eliminate the need to renew this type of products, grant provisional authorizations, make the extension of uses more agile and create a permanent group of evaluation experts.
- Camino García, president of AEFA, for her part, intends to bring to the new European Commission a simple, direct and practical proposal that allows Biocontrol products to be accommodated at the European level with more agility, like the previous speakers said, on the approval of Biocontrol and low-risk active substances, in addition to other procedures like, mutual recognition and parallel trade. In addition, like IBMA, they request a single European entity that evaluates this type of products. Since a modification of the current phytosanitary regulation is not possible, they propose a new legislation only for low-risk products.
- Mª Victoria de la Haza, representative of AEPLA, focused her presentation on some of the techniques and measures that we have at our disposal to reduce and/or mitigate the risks of products that may have certain toxicity for humans. She highlighted the importance of the MAgPIE project initiated in Florida in 2013 as well as the recent draft (March 2024) of the European Compendium to reduce exposure and risk during the use of pesticides and that, in addition, an EFSA guide is expected in the future also in this sense.
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