The diversity of biological pesticides creates challenges for their assessment. To address these, the OECD organises technical seminars, workshops and conferences.
Through its Expert Group on Biopesticides (EGBP), the OECD shares knowledge, develops recommendations to support biopesticide registration. It also draws on global experts in the field to develop technical guidance to address scientific issues that remain barriers to the efficient regulation of biological pesticides (e.g., assessing secondary metabolites in microbial pesticides).
Specific issues related to microbials and some other categories of biopesticides still need to be addressed to improve their safety evaluation further and achieve harmonisation of regulatory schemes for biopesticides. The OECD has reviewed existing test methods to address the regulatory data requirements for microbial pesticides and is working towards recommending improvements or revisions. Furthermore, several microbial strains used as active substances often belong to the same taxa (e.g. species, genus), sharing same or similar properties with other approved substances. Grouping the assessment of these mutual features in consensus documents can accelerate risk assessment process and risk management decision, making them also more consistent among different substances.
