Specifications for pesticides: a training manual
Participant's and Facilitator's guide
Overview
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the principles and practice of defining acceptable quality and equivalence of pesticides, to assist both governments and industry to strengthen the underlying procedures required for quality control of pesticides used in agriculture and public health. The course does not address the procedure and requirements for adapting national pesticide registration systems to implement the principles of determination of equivalence, as promoted by the Code of Conduct,1 but FAO and WHO recognize that this may involve a step-wise approach given the limited resources in many developing countries.
The objectives of the course are that participants completing it should understand the principles underlying specifications for pesticide quality control and be able to:
- apply well-established quality criteria to specific characteristics;
- apply well-established procedures where quality criteria must be defined case by case;
- determine whether or not different sources of an active ingredient, supported by different data, are equivalent;
- determine whether or not additional evidence or expert advice is required to support a decision on either equivalence or the acceptability of quality.
The course is comprised of two main parts. The first is a plenary session, which provides an overview of the principles underlying specifications development and pesticide quality assessment. The second part involves model exercises, with participants working in teams to address typical cases and problems. The teams’ solutions to each exercise are discussed before moving on to the next, so that lessons learnt can be put to good use immediately. However, the exercises are not repetitive and new problems are posed in each one. This reflects the real-life situation, where every case is different and some may present decision-making problems for which there is no precedent or model.
Facilitator's guide only available upon request: yadavraj@who.int