Proceedings of the Asia regional workshop on the

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REPUBLIC OF KOREA
by Su-Myeong Hong
Registration and management scheme in <strong>the</strong> Republic <strong>of</strong> Korea
Pesticide registration in <strong>the</strong> Republic <strong>of</strong> Korea
The Pesticide Management Act (PMA) has been revised and re-enforced several times since
it was promulgated in 1957 for <strong>the</strong> first time in <strong>the</strong> Republic <strong>of</strong> Korea. Pesticides had been registered
by Ministry <strong>of</strong> Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) till November 1996 under <strong>the</strong> legislation system <strong>of</strong>
pesticide commodity permission and commodity notification. Upon adopting <strong>the</strong> notification system
<strong>of</strong> pesticide formulation, everybody was able to register <strong>the</strong> notified pesticide by submitting <strong>the</strong>
formulation recipe and supply certificate <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> technical grade <strong>of</strong> active substances (TGAI). Thus,
<strong>the</strong> Republic <strong>of</strong> Korea became a heart <strong>of</strong> generic pesticides all over <strong>the</strong> world because pesticide
formulators were intensively importing low-priced TGAIs with less confidence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> quality. In
consequence, <strong>the</strong> Government entirely revised <strong>the</strong> PMA with full registration scheme and pesticide
registration was given to <strong>the</strong> Administrator <strong>of</strong> Rural Development Administration (RDA) which has
an activity on research and extension services involving various disciplines <strong>of</strong> agriculture as well as
expert resources related with crop protection since December 1996. Henceforth, <strong>the</strong>re has been
several enforcement <strong>of</strong> PMA to reduce pesticide risks including special reviews <strong>of</strong> distrustful
pesticides in safety on dietary intake <strong>of</strong> residues or non-targeted environmental impact, introduction
<strong>of</strong> re-registration every ten year cycle, a separate registration scheme for bio-pesticides, etc.
Before a pesticide is considered for registration in Korea, it must be reviewed to identify <strong>the</strong>
potential risks to human health and <strong>the</strong> environment as well as demonstrate its biological efficacy to
target pests. For documents on application for agrochemical registration which applied annually, it
was made sure that safe agrochemical were registered through quick and accurate reviewing for each
fields, based on agrochemical management act, article 9.
A total <strong>of</strong> 297 product items were applied for <strong>the</strong> registration in Korea during 2004. The data
<strong>of</strong> each item including efficacy, phytotoxicity, toxicity and residue test were submitted for being
reviewed by each expert. The reviewing results <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong>m were that 259 items were registered while
24 items were rejected and 14 items were asked to submit additional data. 76 items for minor crops
and 52 items by <strong>of</strong>ficial authority were also reviewed for registration.
Toxicity category for each pesticide to be registered was classified and notified on <strong>the</strong>
basis <strong>of</strong> its acute toxicity to mammals and fish. Eight formulations were classified into toxicity
category III and 92 formulations were classified into toxicity category IV. Fish toxicity categories
were assigned to I, IIs, II and III for 15, 1, 15 and 78 formulations, respectively.
It was shown that <strong>the</strong>re were 35 incongruities for data supplement or holding <strong>of</strong> registration
in <strong>the</strong> result for assessment <strong>of</strong> application requirements in 2004. The summary registration
applications were as below; 127 formulations 219 applications in fungicide, 116 formulations
207 applications in insecticide, 57 formulations 67 applications in herbicide, 11 formulations
16 applications in growth regulator and etc.