Title: Australian famers miffed as APVMA performance nosedives
The continued fallout from shelved ministerial directives and failed attempts to tackle the toxic culture within the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) has led to significant delays that are disrupting food security, Australian farming leaders say. New figures from the APVMA’s latest quarterly performance report have revealed that only 54.9 per cent of major pesticide application assessments were completed on time, down from nearly 99 per cent three years ago.
According to RK Crosby at the New England Times, the struggling regulator gave little explanation for the performance drop in a short statement, saying only, “Assessment timeframes may vary based on the complexity of the assessment, the quality of available data, or if the APVMA requires further information from the applicant”.
Farming bodies and pesticide lobbyists have gone into hyperdrive after the performance figure release. Industry leaders are demanding the APVMA push through more approvals for super-toxins because their current market offerings are failing due to rampant insect and plant resistance.
A pesticide lobby leader from CropLife Australia told Grain Central the APVMA's performance was a “nosedive.” National Farmers’ Federation President David Jochinke said better chemical resources were "urgently needed."
The APVMA is funded by fees, charges and levies paid by the pesticide industry it regulates. Companies that sell pesticides pay a levy based on the wholesale value of chemical products sold to cover regulatory activities. Those fees are not covering the cost of self-regulation.
Pesticide industry subsidies push the cost of economic externalities to the taxpayer, for example, to pay for the increasing costs of health care for farmers who contract occupational illnesses from using the increasingly super-toxic pesticides the industry are campaigning to gain more access to.
Article: WeedsNews7125 (permalink) Categories: :WeedsNews:policy, :WeedsNews:economics, :WeedsNews:lobbying Date: 20 July 2025; 7:11:10 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time
