Access to agricultural and horticultural products is managed under the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines (ACVM) Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisims (HSNO) Act. Photo: AFP/ Costfoto / NurPhoto
Those in the primary sector say the government's new targets to reduce the queues to approve new agricultural and horticultural products don't go far enough.
It follows a regulatory review which found the approval process for the agricultural and horticultural products, like pesticides, herbicides and fertilisers, wasn't always allowing timely access to the products.
Cabinet has agreed to all 16 of the recommendations from the regulatory review, including updating the Environmental Protection Authority's risk assessment models, reducing efficacy requirements for inhibitors to the minimum required to manage risks and introducing targets to reduce product queues.
Access to the products is managed under the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines (ACVM) Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisims (HSNO) Act.
Environment Minister Penny Simmonds said she had set a target to reduce the HSNO queue by 10 percent in 2025-26 and would set a more ambitious target once additional staff were appointed.
Environment Minister Penny Simmonds. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Food Safety Minister Andrew Hoggard said he wanted a 20 percent queue reduction for ACVM products by the end of June 2025, compared to October 2024. By the end of June 2026, he wanted to see queues reduce by a further 30 percent.
The ministers would be responsible for an Omnibus Bill to accelerate the improvements.
However, Animal and Plant Health New Zealand (APHANZ) chief executive Dr Liz Shackleton said the targets to reduce product queues seemed unlikely to deliver the rapid change that industry needed.
"While it's positive that Ministers have answered industry's calls to set targets that hold regulators to account, hitting the bullseye requires a bold focus on the targets that matter most.
"Industry keenly await the more ambitious target signalled by the Minister for Environment and hope it's not too little too late."
Dr Shackleton said the priority should be parent products with new active ingredients in the queue already, rather than just increasing approvals for generic products.
She said this would allow farmers and growers to rotate products to manage resistance, improve environmental outcomes and phase out older chemistry.
Many of the products - which have been in the queue for years - are already being used by countries like Australia, Canada and the United States, she said.
"Let's look at blackspot. It's in the queue, there's a solution for that. Apple growers it's their number one barrier to trade and it's been sitting under assessment for almost four years."
Dr Shackleton feared manufacturers of agricultural and horticultural products would exit the New Zealand market unless more bold action was taken.
""The companies that make the new stuff are talking about pulling out of New Zealand.
"New Zealand had once been seen as a desirable place to get early registration. That's no longer the case, the global view is we're now well behind."
Dr Shackleton said time was running out.
The Environmental Protection Authority says the proposed rule changes for hazardous substances would give the industry a clearer path for making use of new chemicals in New Zealand. Photo: supplied
Horticulture New Zealand's general manager of strategy and policy Michelle Sands also felt the targets to reduce product queues didn't go far enough and would not make a difference to the existing backlog.
"We have a situation in New Zealand where other countries have access to newer, softer innovative actives and in New Zealand our process is very slow and so that means we don't have access to those sort of things.
"What that means is that we're actually missing out on things that might have lesser impacts on the environment, on human health."
Sands was also worried that manufacturers would stop providing agricultural and horticultural products to the New Zealand market because of the delayed approvals process.
Chief executive of the New Zealand Veterinary Association Dr Kevin Bryant said under the current system New Zealand was "missing out".
He said the proposed changes were a good start but more was needed to get products into the vet clinics faster.
"For vets on the ground treating animals and coming at it from an animal welfare perspective, we know there are products available in Australia that are not available here that are needed.
"The issue we have is why can we not have a process that enables products that have been approved in other jurisdictions which New Zealand trusts, that they cannot be actually fast-tracked in terms of registration in New Zealand."
Dr Bryant said there was a balance to be achieved between speed and effectiveness, which was why he wanted to see the ACVM better resourced.
"We want to see government prioritising resourcing for ACVM so that new medicines and vaccines can be approved and in our vet clinics as fast as possible."
The Environmental Protection Authority said the proposed changes to the rules for hazardous substances would give the industry a clearer path for making use of new chemicals in New Zealand.
It said the proposed changes would make it easier for applicants to apply in cases where chemicals had already been used safely in other countries, allow the temporary use of some new products and improve transparency around application timeframes and processes.
Meanwhile the Environmental Law Initiative's senior legal advisor Tess Upperton said the EPA's focus must remain on rigorously assessing the possible risks to human and ecosystem health, especially as hazardous substance approvals did not expire.
She said decisions must be "carefully made" and the EPA shouldn't become too focused on having to "shorten the queue" of products waiting for assessment which may divert the EPA from its core environmental obligations.
Upperton agreed with the review that the EPA was "significantly under-funded".
"The best way to streamline applications would be for the EPA to be fully funded to perform as an effective regulator through recovery of the costs of its HSNO (Hazardous Substances and New Organisms ACT) functions from applicants. As it stands, the public is subsidising private interests through majority Crown funding of these EPA functions."
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