The recommendations from the Ministry for Regulation’s regulatory registration review highlight areas where A Lighter Touch’s work aimed at improving access to biological products for growers could contribute.
The Government has announced it has accepted all 16 recommendations from the Ministry’s Agricultural and Horticultural Products Regulatory Review, including those focused on reducing application queues and accelerating assessments under the product approval pathway. A summary of the Ministry’s recommendations can be found here. A Lighter Touch, along with a wide range of other industry stakeholders, fed into the Ministry’s review.
Biological crop protection products are expected to play a key role in growers moving to ‘lighter touch’ growing practices, but they currently go through the same regulatory approval process as synthetic chemistry. Facilitating improvement of the regulatory pathway is a key objective of the A Lighter Touch (ALT) programme in order to help growers gain access to more biological crop protection options for pest and disease management.
ALT has a review underway of international regulatory processes with the goal of exploring solutions to help ease access to biological products in New Zealand.
An international researcher, with experience of regulatory processes in a range of countries, including New Zealand, is carrying out the knowledge review, and will make recommendations to the regulators on how findings from that review could be implemented into the current New Zealand regulatory process.
Both New Zealand regulatory bodies, the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and NZ Food Safety (NZFS), which is responsible for Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines (ACVMs), have been briefed on the project and its purpose, and are very supportive of the work A Lighter Touch is undertaking. The ALT project was also discussed with the Ministry for Regulation to ensure it was not duplicating work being undertaken as part of its review.
The Government has announced next steps following on from the Ministry’s review will include the establishment a Sector Leaders Forum to bring regulators and the sector to the table to help provide greater transparency and oversight of the approval system. It is anticipated the ALT regulatory pathway review findings will contribute to this discussion.
