With Commission Implementation Regulation EU 2020/17 and EU 2020/18 which came into force on 16 January 2020, European countries were required to withdraw authorisations for pesticide containing chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl by 16 February 2020 with grace period permitted until 16 April 2020.
In addition the Standing Committee on Plants, Animals, Food and Feed section Phytopharmaceutical - Residues is scheduled to convene on a meeting during 17 - 18 February 2020 in which one of the agenda of discussion is exchange of views and possible opinion of the Committee on a draft Commission Regulation EU amending Annexes II and V to Regulation (EC) No. 396/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards maximum residue levels for chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl in and on certain products. Upon the adoption of the aforementioned draft Commission Regulation, the maximum residue levels of all product for active substance chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl will be lowered to 0.01 mg/kg and would come into force in October 2020.
With the new MRLs coming into force in October 2020, the downstream stakeholders of agricultural industry including the spice industry would take a significant blow. As for spice the cycle of farming, harvesting, exporting and trading would at least take a total of three years, farmers would not only lose a significant tool in managing destructive pests which could diminish their ability in obtaining sufficient yield, they would also be unable to export product containing residues to the EU which in worst case scenario would last for the next 2-3 years taking into account the cycle of industry. Furthermore, in regards of pepper, the new MRLs would give another blow to the ongoing downtrend of pepper price as farmer have to start finding other biological pesticide to replace chlorpyrifos at probably much higher cost in order to keep yielding the same amount.
The stream of commerce would take a massive hit, as the significantly short transitional period for such widely used pesticide would mean that all of already manufactured products as well as currently on store shelves were rendered out of compliance with the new MRL requirement and needed to be destroyed. Thus, resulting to a serious financial drawback of the pepper commerce industry.
Furthermore, with the implementation of the new MRLs in October 2020, it would mean a significant disruption of spices supply to the European Countries in particular pepper as most pepper producing countries like Indonesia, Viet Nam and Brazil which supply most of European Countries pepper need, are currently still regulated chlorpyrifos and chlorpyrifos-methyl for agricultural use. With the prospect of consignment being turned down to enter EU due to residue of chlorpyrifos, scarcity of pepper stock in the European Countries is imminent.
Source:
- Brazil, Unofficial source (Coreimex, CSG Trade)
- India: AISEF, NCDEX, Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Spices Board India
- Indonesia: Unofficial source
- Malaysia: Malaysian Pepper Board
- Sri Lanka: Department of Export Agriculture
- Viet Nam : Viet Nam Pepper Association, HCMC
- China: Hainan Pepper Association, China Spice Association
- Office of Agricultural Economics of Thailand
- A.A. SAYIA & Company
- International Trade Centre (ITC) - Geneva
Note: Some of the data in this publication are from the IPC database. The data are obtained from official reports and correspondence between the IPC and Sri Lanka and have been processed based on statistical norms that can be accounted for.
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