New government ordinance does not facilitate registration of pesticides in Brazil
2020-03-06
A recent claim, which has been propagated by the media, that Ordinance No. 43, of February 21, 2020, would facilitate the registration of pesticides is misleading. Published in the Official Gazette last Thursday (27.02) by the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Supply (Mapa), the Ordinance establishes a 60-day deadline for the registration of pesticides, after which the “tacit” approval of the registration would be in force. This is because the registration is only granted after the completion of assessments by Anvisa (National Health Surveillance Agency) and Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources). The 60-day period stipulated in Ordinance No. 43, therefore, can only come into force after the completion of the two previous evaluations of the health and environmental agencies. “One of the agencies set a time frame of one to four years for the tacit approval, while the other determined that the Economic Freedom Act (LLE) does not apply to pesticides. It so happens that the old Decree 4074/02 already foresaw the term of 30 days for the Map to publish the record (act through which it becomes legally valid). This time, the 60-day period is longer than the one in force since 2002,” explained Leticia Rodrigues da Silva, PhD in Public Policy/UFPR. The only body where there is a possibility of applying the LLE, according to her, is Anvisa, and mainly for new active ingredients, or those not yet registered in the country. The problem is that the current period between the protocol and the conclusion of the analysis can take 10 years, despite the current efforts to modernize and streamline this procedure.
