CropLife Canada and CropLife Australia welcome joint government statement on regulatory cooperation

CropLife Canada and CropLife Australia celebrate the recent announcement by Prime Minister Carney and Prime Minister Albanese of a joint commitment to enhance regulatory cooperation on agricultural inputs, including crop protection products. This announcement comes as part of a broader suite of measures to strengthen economic, industrial and security harmonization between the two countries.

Strengthening regulatory cooperation will facilitate more timely access to critical inputs for farmers and strengthen the competitiveness of the agriculture and food sectors in both countries.

Canada and Australia have robust, risk-based regulatory systems for crop protection products with high standards for the protection of human and environmental health and safety. With a long history of collaboration between the two countries, increasing regulatory cooperation for crop protection products is a natural and important step towards improving the efficiency of regulatory systems in both countries and supporting domestic and global food security.

The Joint Statement builds on the success of the Shared Assessment Program between Food Standards Australia and New Zealand and Health Canada for GM foods which was a result of calls from CropLife Australia and CropLife Canada to reap the benefits of collaborative assessment. This has driven investment in safe agricultural biotechnology that is helping farmers on both sides of the Pacific to drive productivity growth despite the challenges posed by climate change.

“This announcement builds on the recent momentum from our federal government around reducing red tape to enhance our competitiveness and make Canada a leader in attracting investment in innovation. Enhanced regulatory cooperation with Australia is a no-cost measure that can be implemented quickly to deliver immediate results in terms of improving performance standards for pesticide evaluations in Canada,” says Pierre Petelle, president and CEO of CropLife Canada.

“Backing in agricultural productivity during these uncertain times makes sense for both of our nations. With Australia and Canada being two of the most important agricultural exporters globally, this is a good decision for world food security. The goal now of regulators is to use this cooperation to bring Australia and Canada to the top of the queue for the latest productivity driving crop protection tools,” said Matthew Cossey, CEO of CropLife Australia.

The plant science industries in Canada and Australia look forward to working with their respective governments to implement this approach as soon as possible. The aim is to deliver benefits for growers in both countries and drive much-needed agricultural productivity.