Agricultural pesticides, properly used, are essential in supplying the food requirements of the world's ever growing population. Modern agricultural sufficiency is maintained
only by the judicious use of pesticides. The benefits consist not only in increased yields of produce, but also in increased quality.
For successful pest control it is essential to use pesticide products of known quality, albeit within the context of integrated pest management (IPM). The use of sub-standard
formulations can result in not only ineffective p7st control operation, but also lead to several other problems. It may result in the development of pest resistance to pesticides and
aggravate any such existing problem. Sub-standard formulations may contain chemicals, which can potentiate the toxicity of the pesticides to mammals and other non-target species.
They may also contain degradation products, some of which are known to be more toxic than parent compounds. These chemicals may find their way into the food chain and the
environment. Pesticide product adulteration is another problem, and it is of a serious nature in developing countries, where pesticides use is on the increase. In many developing
countries the use of sub-standard and/or adulterated pesticide products is resulting in failed pest control operations, leading to ever increasing application rates and the associated
cost, and compounding human health and environmental problems.
One of the objectives of FAO's International Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides is to promote practices which ensure efficient and safe use (of pesticides)
while minimizing health and environmental concerns. The Code calls upon international organizations to encourage responsible and accepted trade practices in countries by assisting
them in regulation of the quality and suitability of pesticide products, ensuring that pesticides are used effectively, providing information and guidance on methods of analysis, training
personnel, and assisting in the establishment of analytical laboratories.
The main problem of quality control of pesticide products in a regulatory laboratory is the application of standardised (CIPAC or AOAC) methods, which have been collaboratively
studied and meet the requirements of ISO Standard 17025. With a few exceptions, these methods apply different conditions for the determination of active ingredients in the formulation,
simply because they were developed by different companies where the analytical conditions are optimised for a few compounds and their formulations.
Further on, strictly speaking the method is only applicable for the formulation on which it was tested and collaboratively studied. Consequently they should not be applied, without
appropriate validation, for generic products manufactured under different conditions applying different chemicals for the synthesis and formulation.
Regulatory laboratories are forced to deviate from the CIPAC procedure if they have to analyse a number of different pesticide products as they cannot change columns and
eluents after each product or on daily basis due to cost and time restrictions. The deviation is mainly carried out at the determination step, as the sample preparation, extraction can
be carried out according to the CIPAC or AOAC procedure without any problem, except the use of large amount of very expensive analytical standards not readily available in many laboratories.
The overall objective of this CRP is to assist national pesticide control agencies to assure the quality of pesticide products and hence support legislation concerned with food quality and
environmental protection.
Specific objectives are to:
Multi-pesticide methods will be elaborated and validated for about 20 pesticides manufactured by various companies. Analytical quality assurance and quality control (QA\QC) procedures will be elaborated and introduced in the participating laboratories. and standardised. These are expected to improve technical and management capability of the laboratories and facilitate implementation of legislation by national authorities.
