There will be major changes to pesticide labels

Release time: 2023-06-20

      On June 14, 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs issued a letter on soliciting opinions on the Administrative Measures for Pesticide Labels and Instructions (Draft Revision) (hereinafter referred to as the "draft Revision"). The deadline for soliciting opinions is June 30, 2016. Email: pmd@agri.gov.cn。
      This draft amendment has a broader definition of the scope of the use of pesticide labels and instructions，Pesticide products originally marketed and used within the territory of China shall be printed or labeled on the surface of the package，Pesticide products stored, transported, sold or used in China shall be printed or labeled on the surface of the package。This item can be understood to mean that not only the production and sales of products should be accompanied by labels, but also the transportation and storage labels。
      It should be noted that in Chapter II, Article 8 of the revised draft, the contents of the pesticide label should be marked, in addition to the scope of use, method of use, dosage, technical requirements for use and precautions, the corresponding dilution times should also be marked according to the method of use。This means that once the revised draft is published, the original label without dilution multiple needs to be replaced。Some businesses need to reinvent their labels。
      The biggest change is to article 9，On the basis of the original 7 requirements, 2 additional provisions are added: (4) Herbicides registered for genetically modified crops shall be marked with the name of the applicable genetically modified crops and converters;For herbicide-tolerant crops such as gene editing，The corresponding applicable crop variety name shall be marked;(5) The specified additives need to be added when used，The relevant information should be marked。
      Some analysts believe that the former is to prepare for the upcoming commercialization of GMO;The latter one is to prevent the chaotic addition of additives and pesticide sets。
      In Article 17 of the revised draft, the algorithm of dilution multiple is clarified to make the pesticide use guidance more targeted。
      Article 18 Requirements for pesticide use intervals are more detailed。In the original management methods，Pesticides used for seed treatment, such as seed dressing, coating and soaking，A pesticide used as a pre-crop soil treatment agent，A pesticide that is used only once at seedling stage，There is no need to label the safety interval，However, the revised draft states that there is no need to label the interval period for seed treatment, pre-seedling soil treatment and pesticide application at the seedling stage of crops with a growth period of more than three months。In other words, crops with a growth period of less than 3 months still need to be marked。
      Article 24 relates to the marking of traceability electronic information code, the revised draft adds requirements, each storage, transportation, sales of pesticide packaging should be marked with traceability electronic information code, internal and external packaging traceability electronic information code should be related。This means that any packaging should have a traceable electronic information code。
      The amendment of Article 27 is similar to the amendment of Article 2, both of which extend the scope of pesticide labels to storage and transportation, which can be understood to mean that pesticide packaging, regardless of size, should be attached to pesticide labels during storage and transportation。
      Article 31 adds a new requirement that the same production enterprise can use only one brand logo or trademark;The font size of the text part shall not be larger than one half of the pesticide name。Although the first half of the sentence remains to be further explained, it is foreseeable that once the revised draft is passed, the phenomenon of "eating more than one certificate" will be improved。
      The amendment of Article 32 is also for the pesticide interval, the revised draft requires that the safety interval and the number of times of application should be marked prominently, the size is larger than the size of other words required by the use of technology, and is indicated in bold。

      (Source: China Agricultural Information Guide network）