The in-person meeting after two years of virtual calls allowed many members of the team to meet for the first time, and further allowed significant strategic planning for each region.
From November 30 to December 2, BCI’s Vice President for Global Access attended a workshop sponsored by USDA at Louisiana State University to discuss pesticide Maximum Residue Level (MRL) capacity building in Asia, Latin America, and Africa. This project, coordinated by North Carolina State’s Center for Excellence in Regulatory Science in Agriculture (CERSA) attempts to work with governments in those regions to establish responsible pesticide policies based on risk that can assist growers.
The in-person meeting after two years of virtual calls allowed many members of the team to meet for the first time. It further allowed significant strategic planning for each region. BCI’s role is to provide a grower and policy perspective for the efforts. Through this project, Matt has spoken to the Ministers of Agriculture in Central America, and has worked to seek new MRLs for US growers in Southeast Asia. BCI has also coordinated and moderated a panel on pesticide risk communication in Chiang Mai, Thailand as part of this effort.