Residue Program: Asia Pacific

Project Title: Support for Activities under the Global Minor Use Fund – Funding research Associated with the Global Minor Use and IR-4 Workshop Priorities.

Basis for collaboration between IR-4 and APAARI

IR-4 has a long-standing relationship with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) but they are not able to handle agreements that do not include all ASEAN member states. APAARI, the Asia-Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions,  already has  agreements  in cooperating countries where IR-4 desires to perform cooperative research regarding pesticide residues on agricultural commodities.  APAARI has the ability to facilitate knowledge transfer as well as resource and capacity transfers.  We believe that there is a much higher chance of success in completing research if IR-4 is engaged with an organization such as APAARI rather using individual agreements with multiple entities.

In 2015, IR-4 was awarded with a FAS grant “The Global Minor Use Fund (GMUF)” to advance cooperative pesticide residue work.  Resources were provided to IR-4 to assist in the expansions of the IR-4 Project’s multifaceted efforts in helping U.S. fruits, vegetables, herbs and other edible specialty crop farmers gain greater access to international markets by removing trade barriers associated with pesticide use.  The activities under the GMUF complements and integrates the work of IR-4 by providing it with an “international arm” for international coordination and collaboration. The GMUF is essentially an extension of the successful work completed by IR-4, takes it to the global level, and is a result of previous work supported by the Standard Trade Development Facility.  This FAS support is intended to add functionality to the GMUF, enabling it to provide data exchange/sharing, consolidating and prioritizing global plant protection needs, serving as a coordinator of joint residue studies, providing capacity/training to foreign partners (government institutions similar to IR-4) and seeking contributions of additional resources from foreign governments and the private sector.  Under this proposal, the IR-4 Project coordinates field and laboratory research with cooperating international partners to develop data required to support establishment of harmonized global maximum residue level standards on pest control products needed to address Global Needs, identified at Global Minor Use Workshops. 

Statement of work with APAARI

There are a number of projects that were identified at the first and second Global Minor Use Workshops that have now evolved into residue studies and are ready for initiation.  With APAARI’s existing agreements with the countries scheduled to do this work, they have been identified as an ideal partner, APAARI will be in the best position to implement and administer this work. 

The projects identified include:

1. Spinetoram on dragon fruit to control fruit fly and some lepidopterous insects.
2. Trifloxystrobin+ Fluopyram on dragon fruit to control Anthracnose.
3. Trifloxystrobin+ Fluopyram on papaya to control Anthracnose
4. Picarbutrazox for management of downy mildew in basil.
5. Haloxyfop or Clethodim for weed control in lettuce.

The Countries contributing to this work include: Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.