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NAFTA TWG on Pesticides
Quick Resources
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Technical Working Group (TWG) on Pesticides is a collaboration among the pesticides regulatory government agencies of the United States (EPA Office of Pesticides Programs), Canada and Mexico. The primary objective is to develop easier and less expensive pesticide regulation and trade among the three countries and meet the environmental, ecological, and human health objectives of NAFTA. TWG partners address trade issues, national regulatory and scientific capacity, governmental review burden, and they coordinate regulatory decisionmaking and industry burden reduction. The NAFTA TWG was established in 1997, to streamline certain pesticide shipments between Canada, Mexico, and the United States.
The TWG has recently embarked on implementation of its new Five-Year Strateg (PDF) (31 pp, 420.61K About PDF). This document reaffirms the overarching goals of the TWG'S 1997 and 2003 strategic plans and outlines key objectives and work areas to guide the TWG’s efforts through 2013. An Accomplishments Report (PDF) (19 pp, 201.14K About PDF) has been completed capturing the many TWG successes from 2003-2008. More details on the TWG's planned and completed efforts can be found in the project sheets and project completion sheets.
EPA/OPP and its NAFTA partners have completed more than 19 projects since 1998. These projects have improved food safety, risk reduction, and trade of agricultural commodities: enabled successful collaboration on reviewing scientific studies and coordinated registration decisions of new pesticides and uses; and, improved processes for exchanging information between industry and the three regulatory agencies. There are many projects under way, guided by NAFTA project teams made up of representatives from the various agencies. Descriptions and progress of these projects are available on project sheets.
The TWG is led by an Executive Board that provides overall guidance and policy direction. The Executive Board members are:
- Director of the U.S. EPA Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP),
- Executive Director of the Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA), and
- General Director for Agri-foods, Aquaculture, and Fisheries in the Mexican agriculture ministry known as Secretaría de Agricultura, Ganadería, Desarrollo Rural, Pesca y Alimentación (SAGARPA)
The TWG Secretariat provides overall coordination of the TWG’s activities and consists of staff-level representatives from all three countries. There are several projects under way, guided by NAFTA project teams made up of representatives from the various agencies.
There are two NAFTA TWG meetings a year: a government-only meeting with the Executive Board and other regulatory officials and a government-stakeholder meeting with the Executive Board, regulatory officials, and interested stakeholders such as growers, industry, and public interest groups. The public is consulted in advance of these meetings to identify topics of interest, and public meeting summaries are published to report on key outcomes from the meetings. The summary of the last NAFTA TWG meeting (PDF), (9 pp, 79K About PDF) held in Phoenix, Arizona from November 18-20, 2008 is now available.
NAFTA TWG Partners
- Canadian Pest Management Regulatory Agency NAFTA TWG site
- Sagarpa Web site (Spanish)
- Cofepris Web site (Spanish), (English)