Safety
Making sure our products are safe — for people, animals and the environment — is our top priority
Agriculture is one of the most scrutinized industries in the world — and we support regulatory processes designed to ensure the safety of our products, because safety is also our top priority.
Today’s advanced pesticides have to meet stringent government standards — and undergo more than a decade of testing and review by multiple agencies — to prove that they are safe for human and animal health as well as the environment, when used as intended.
In the United States, for example, our pesticide products are governed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and follow a rigorous review process to confirm their safety — a process called registration review — that is repeated at least every 15 years, taking into consideration any new data. For each pesticide it reviews, the U.S. EPA evaluates hundreds of different scientific studies during the registration and re-registration process, relying on the best science available and placing high value on transparency in decision-making. Even after regulatory approval, the safety monitoring continues, and unintended effects must be reported to regulators so that they can take appropriate action as necessary.
During this process, the U.S. EPA may receive and review studies and information from manufacturers, third parties and the public and take findings and questions to independent expert panels such as the FIFRA Scientific Advisory Panel and the National Academy of Sciences.
The U.S. EPA assesses and evaluates safety risk now and over time including:
- Human safety at all ages
- Water protection — including potential impacts to surface water or ground water from leaching, runoff and spray drift
- Food safety
- Potential impacts to domestic animals as well as wildlife and their habitats
- Any potential environmental impact from use of the product
A single crop protection product takes an average of 12 years to develop and gain regulatory approval; a biotech trait takes almost 16 years; and a new seed product can take seven years.
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A Review Process for Every Country
Pesticides and their labeling have to comply with the regulations of every country in which they are manufactured, used or sold. This means some pesticides have to meet the standards of more than 100 different regulatory agencies around the world. Our products sold around the world have been approved not only by the U.S. EPA, but also by the countries in which they are used and sold, and in most cases in Health Canada and the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), the European regulator.
The reviews are designed to test, and retest, and test again, what impact, if any, the active ingredients in the products may have on human, animal and environmental health and confirm they are safe, when used according to label directions.
To learn more about EFSA’s pesticide review process, visit .
To learn more about Health Canada’s pesticide review process, visit .
We’re Proud of Our Track Record
The products themselves are critical because, simply put, they help farmers grow more food (and fuel), to help feed a growing world. For example, American farmers produce 300% more per acre today than they did 70 years ago, allowing hundreds of millions of acres to remain out of production, which in turn delivers significant energy, biodiversity and climate benefits.
- In the U.S., Reklemel® active, our first-of-its-kind, selective nematicide product, is one of the first new active ingredients to be registered under EPA’s updated policy incorporating Endangered Species Act (ESA) assessments into the pesticide registration process.
- Our Enlist® herbicides are the first pesticides to successfully complete the comprehensive ESA Risk Assessment and Consultation process, following the EPA’s new evaluation framework for ESA.
- ggpokerÖÐÎÄ has won six Green Chemistry Challenge Awards presented by the U.S. EPA — more than any other agricultural company. The award is given to companies or institutions that develop new chemical products or processes that help to reduce or eliminate the generation of hazardous substances in the environment.
And we've made a public commitment that every newly developed ggpokerÖÐÎÄ product must meet our stringent sustainability criteria, which are aligned to the UN Sustainable Development Goals.