Description:
Background - In China and many countries in the South
East Asian area rice is an important crop. Although the management
of growing rice may be different in different parts of the world
also many similarities may be accounted for, like partly inundation
of the rice crop (paddy fields), application of plant protection
products (PPP) and the registration process to allow the application
of PPP in the rice growing countries. Registration of PPPs applied
in rice may follow a decision of the government and may be based
on a risk assessment process. Risk assessment may be involved for
several aspects like humans, the environment, the applicators or
the workers. The proposal in this project will focus on the environmental
risk assessment for pesticides applied in paddy rice fields. Sometimes
the environmental risk assessment process is absent and in other
countries the risk assessment may be carried out in different ways.
Knowledge of the risk assessment process as carried out in other
countries may stimulate countries to actively be involved in the
registration of pesticides.
In bringing across differences in rice management systems as well
as differences in risk assessment procedures all parties may be
able to learn from each other and apply newly developed methods
in the specific procedures for registration of pesticides applied
in paddy rice fields in their own countries.
Generally environmental risk assessments are carried out in a tiered
approach in which each next level will consist of a more sophisticated
level of exposure and / or effect assessment and is moving from
a worst case scenario to a much more realistic scenario keeping
of course a certain level of conservatism to be able to protect
man and environment for too high levels of contamination of one
hand but also on the other hand to take care of a sufficient level
of protection of the crop against diseases that may negatively influence
to yield of the rice crop. The exposure analysis may vary between
rather simple calculations of possible concentrations to the application
of mathematical models to realistically simulate the potential concentrations
in the environment. The effect assessment may take into account
simple single species toxicity studies to more complex mesocosm
or field studies.
In some parts of the world initiatives have been carried out related
to environmental risk assessment in paddy rice fields, e.g. the
MED-Rice working group of the European Union, the EU project on
CAPER and also in the USA by EPA and Waterborn Inc. Experience gained
in these projects are incorporated in the current programme of the
project. Also other stakeholders, like the International Rice Research
Institute would be invited to attend. The project would serve as
an important tool to disseminate information to a wider audience.In
addition risk management will be discussed as well.
Action Plan
First, representatives of 5 or 6 regions with differing approaches
to assessment and regulation will prepare short position papers
on the risk assessment process used in their regions. A task group
mini-workshop will be hosted during September or October of 2007
with selected representatives presenting summaries of the approaches
to risk assessment for their regions followed by a discussion forum
to identify areas of commonality and differences, research needs,
etc...A draft summary report will be prepared by early-to-mid 2008
including a proposed set of best practices for risk assessment and
outline of future research needs.
