The WBF has mustered its industry network to lobby the UK’s HSE on regulatory reform for biopesticides, with the publication of an open letter in this month’s official journal of the Society of Chemical Industry
The World BioProtection Forum (WBF) has taken the sector initiative to garner support from 30 leaders representing both academia and the bioprotection industry, who have together co-signed an open letter to the UK’s Health & Safety Executive (HSE).
The WBF and its broad network of supporters across the world see a positive opportunity, now that the UK can formulate its own regulations post-Brexit. British regulators are well placed to help devise and implement positive, forward-looking reforms. There is huge opportunity to bring in changes that enable environmentally favourable bioprotection products to be brought to market more quickly – thereby ensuring business viability and enabling the benefits of this green industrial sector to be obtained. It is hoped that a better and more tailored system can combine the necessary rigours of regulatory testing with a more appropriate evaluation system that is better suited to biological products, rather than subjecting biologicals to an evaluation process designed for chemicals.
The spread of co-signatories includes representatives from commercial entities such as Bioline Agrosciences (UK), Bionema (UK), Bioworks (USA), BTU-Center (Ukraine), Chestnut Bio (USA), Croda Europe (UK), Ecolibrium Biologicals (New Zealand), Eden Research (UK), e-nema (Germany), Farma-Chem (Greece), FluxTech (Romania), Gowan Company (USA), Lisk & Jones (UK), International Pheromone Systems (UK), Marrone Bio Innovations (USA), Koppert Biological Systems (The Netherlands), Oro Agri (The Netherlands), Russell Bio Solutions (UK), Russell IPM (UK) and Valto (The Netherlands), as well as several reputated academic institutions and non-profit organisations. Together, these organisations offer a powerful representation of the world bioprotection industry, and they call on the UK Government to take advantage of a unique opportunity to meaningfully support AgriTech as an economically and environmentally valuable sector.
