Some information from Health Canada on the Grower Requested Own Use (GROU) program:
Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is pleased to notify Canadian growers that the Grower Requested Own Use (GROU) program will be implemented by July 2007. The identity of eligible products and the application process will be posted on this webpage and shared with grower associations in the coming weeks.
A pilot project for GROU was conducted in late 2006 where 8 products were found to be eligible after an analysis of the information provided by pesticide manufacturers. These products were part of a list of 12 priorities submitted by grower groups. It is anticipated that the 8 products from the pilot as well as other potential candidates will be eligible for importation once program processes are finalized.
The GROU program was created for the benefit of Canadian farmers. The program will allow farmers to import the US version of Canadian-registered products for their own use should they be available in that market at a lower price. The PMRA will also work with grower groups to develop a process to select and prioritize the products for consideration under GROU.
In addition, PMRA intends to implement, in July 2007, the new data protection policy which will facilitate the registration of generic pesticides (Protection of Proprietary Interests in Pesticide Data or PPIP). PMRA expects to begin accepting applications for generic pesticide registrations using the new policy in July 2007.
With this decision, the PMRA will not consider applications for new products under Own Use Import (OUI). However, products that were being contemplated for OUI could be submitted for consideration under the GROU program or the new data protection policy once these programs are in place.
PMRA will re-open the OUI process if pesticide manufacturers are not willing to provide the information necessary to process GROU applications.
More information available at Health Canada.
