Proceedings of the Asia regional workshop on the

and safe to handlers, livestock, environment. The problems are some <strong>of</strong> poor quality or
products with misguide-label sold in <strong>the</strong> market, and lack <strong>of</strong> monitor, <strong>the</strong> farmer have no
ability to distinguish <strong>the</strong> quality, couldn’t get <strong>the</strong> correct using method, and lacking <strong>of</strong>
guidance from specialists.
● The fourth is market supervising.
Although many staffers work for market supervising, it is still lack <strong>of</strong> human resource to
<strong>the</strong> great market. Lacking <strong>of</strong> test equipment is ano<strong>the</strong>r reason to restrict <strong>the</strong> market
supervision.
● The last is pesticides disposal which has been mentioned.
The IPM project should be seriously considered in <strong>the</strong> future.
China government has pursued <strong>the</strong> pesticides management for more than 40 years, and got
many experience on it. There are 3 important strengths on pesticides management, as below:
● The first is MOA playing an important role for pesticides management. It is more able to
harmonize <strong>the</strong> pesticides management than o<strong>the</strong>r departments; after all, most <strong>of</strong>
population in China lives in rural areas.
● The second is a high level <strong>of</strong> Data Requirement for Pesticides Registration that has been
published in recent years. The first edition <strong>of</strong> Requirement was published in 1982, it was
drafted in reference to <strong>the</strong> requirement <strong>of</strong> U.S. Japan, Germany, Australia and FAO, and
modified several time, it is now very fit for <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> Chinese pesticides
industry and close to <strong>the</strong> requirements <strong>of</strong> developed countries.
● The third is <strong>the</strong> built-up <strong>of</strong> a system <strong>of</strong> pesticides management, from MOA to counties,
with thousands <strong>of</strong> people engaged <strong>the</strong> project, and each level <strong>of</strong> department has its own
responsibility.
There are two weaknesses in our management:
The first a lack <strong>of</strong> human resources. For example, <strong>the</strong>re are more than 1 200 staff working
for US EPA on <strong>the</strong> pesticide registration management, more than 80 staff work for <strong>the</strong> Registration
Division, and o<strong>the</strong>r staff work for States to do <strong>the</strong> same work, but <strong>the</strong>re only 90 staff (including
administrative and financial, etc.) working for ICAMA, ICAs in provinces have no right to do <strong>the</strong>
work <strong>of</strong> pesticide registration. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, <strong>the</strong>re are too many factories and products in China,
more than 2 600 plants are allowed to produce pesticides and about 2 500 new products got
temporary registration certificates in 2005 to date.
The second weakness is farmer education. In general, <strong>the</strong> education level <strong>of</strong> farmers in China
is poor and most farmers have only primary school education. As a result, it is difficult for <strong>the</strong>m to
have any knowledge about pesticides. They also lack channels to get <strong>the</strong> knowledge, almost half <strong>of</strong>
knowledge on pesticides comes from o<strong>the</strong>r farmers. On <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>r hand, <strong>the</strong> government’s provision
<strong>of</strong> information and investment <strong>of</strong> pesticides to <strong>the</strong> farmers is limited.
All in all, I think <strong>the</strong> bottleneck <strong>of</strong> pesticides management is <strong>the</strong> general development level <strong>of</strong>
China. So <strong>the</strong> most important affairs, which <strong>the</strong> government should do, are to keep <strong>the</strong> stabilization
<strong>of</strong> society and developing <strong>the</strong> economy.
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