In collaboration with the Foreign Agricultural Service, United States Department of Agriculture, AGPMC held two regional training workshops on pesticide residue risk assessment and standard setting in Brazil and Ghana.
The workshop for Latin America and the Caribbean was held in San Paulo, Brazil, from 16 to 20 May 2011. Twenty-one participants from twelve countries attended this training workshop. Participants came from Argentina, Belize, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.
The training for the Africa region was held in Accra, Ghana, from 6 to 10 June 2011, and twenty-two participants attended it. Participants came from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia.
These regional training workshops were held in order to respond to the requests of developing countries to play a greater role in the process of establishing international standard and to strengthen the capabilities of scientists from these countries in residue risk assessment for the establishment of MRLs and in evaluation of residue dossier for pesticide registration.
Most of the participants of both workshops were from pesticide regulatory authorities. The trainees showed great interest in the training. They highly valued particularly the group exercises, which were extremely instructive and provided the opportunity for the trainees to see the complexities of pesticide residue evaluation. All the participants indicated that the workshop substantially expanded their views, improved their understanding of the complex subject, and they all believed that the knowledge and skills which they learned from the training will be helpful for their work in the future.
As requested by the member countries, in particular developing countries, FAO has taken a series of activities to strengthen the capabilities of scientists from developing countries in the techniques of pesticide evaluation for the establishment of MRLs and to update their knowledge of the assessment of risks associated with dietary intake of pesticide residues. In 2010, FAO developed and published the FAO Training Manual on the Evaluation of pesticide residues for establishment of maximum residue levels and calculation of dietary intake. Further, in November 2010 the first international training workshop on the establishment of MRLs and residue risk assessment was held in Budapest, Hungary, from 8 to 12 November 2010. Fifteen trainees participated in the workshop, thirteen of them coming from developing countries. Following the two training workshops in Africa, Latin America/Central America, a regional training course for Asia will be held on 8-12 August in Bangkok, Thailand