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In 1998, the Risk Reduction Project organised a workshop in Neuchatel, Switzerland, to explore how integrated pest management (IPM) could help reduce the risks associated with pesticide use in agriculture. The workshop responded to a recommendation from the Uppsala workshop to "initiate activities to facilitate information exchange between countries on IPM and other alternatives". It also initiated discussions about "systems to measure progress in risk reduction", whose development was recommended by the Uppsala workshop.
The Report of the OECD/FAO Workshop on Integrated Pest Management and Pesticide Risk Reduction (Neuchatel, 1998) affiirms that IPM can contribute to pesticide risk reduction and identifies actions that governments, farmers, retailers, OECD and FAO could take to promote IPM. The report also compiles the official definitions of IPM used by the government agencies and organisations represented at the workshop.
Most of the workshop recommendations target actions to be taken at the national and local level. However, the OECD Working Group on Pesticides has followed up in two areas: harmonising data requirements for biological pesticides, and organising a workshop on the economics of pesticide risk reduction.
In response to the Neuchatal Workshop's recommendation to "promote registration of IPM compatible products," a series of projects has been undertaken to harmonise data requirements for biological pesticides.
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