The seminar aimed to promote a dialogue on the challenges in evaluating complex biopesticide mixtures and approaches to addressing them, and to make recommendations for information collection, improvement, and harmonisation of approaches to evaluating biopesticide active substances that exist as complex mixtures.
The Seminar covered the types of mixtures currently encountered among biopesticides, the information needs for different types of mixtures, points of knowledge for understanding what is critical to the risk assessment, how mixtures are best quantified (e.g., through identification of a marker compound), risk assessment hypotheses related to mixtures and related analyses, and limits to the risk assessment (e.g., information and analyses that are not useful or necessary). Discussions concentrated around specific challenges and questions that arise in evaluation and risk assessment of mixtures, the similarities and differences of the information needs and evaluation of different types of mixtures, how these challenges are currently being addressed among member countries, and future needs to refine and focus assessments involving mixtures, where attention is most needed to ensure that they are focused but effective.
Participants recommended keeping the topic on the agenda for the coming years, noting its increasing relevance.
