November 2024
The current European Union (EU) regulatory framework for plant protection products is not delivering biocontrol innovations to the market fast enough, nor are enough biocontrol tools reaching farmers.
Since 2019, 13 biocontrol active ingredients have been approved, but 21 have expired, been withdrawn, or not been renewed, resulting in a net loss of 8 biocontrol solutions.
At the moment, the European market is fragmented, which raises regulatory costs unnecessarily and particularly lowers the attractiveness of small markets. This makes the Return on Investment (ROI) very poor for bringing biocontrol products to market in the EU.
There appears to be consensus that something has to change, but there are also concerns about renegotiating the plant protection regulation. At the request of Biocontrol Coalition member Syngenta, the law firm Altius analysed the legal options for improving the regulation of biocontrol products. In this thought-provoking memo, Altius explains why they think that Regulation (EC) 1107/2009 is incapable of scaling up the use of biocontrol products, what the alternatives are, and how to make the changes without undermining the existing plant protection regulation.
Read the Altius legal opinion on how to achieve better biocontrol regulation in the EU