Representing the Plant Science Industry CropLife Africa Middle East Newsletter Number 22 September, 2007 What’s happening? • Syrian ToT course • Sudan ToT course • Registration issues in Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon • Counterfeits workshop in Côte d’Ivoire • Cement kiln incineration work- shop • Herbicide resistance • Biotechnology training in Malawi Facilitator Training in Syria A five day course was conducted in Damascus, Syria for training of personnel from various sec- tors of the MoA of Syria, private sector and the obsolete stocks programme in Syria. The course was supported by CropLife Africa Middle East and locally organized by the industry association, CropLife Syria. Twelve participants benefited from the course, which was led and facilitated by, training consult- ant, Peter Mills. Beside training and certifying 12 master trainers, the course also addressed revision and updating of ToT materials together with the provision of ToT and safe use training materials to partici- pants and stakeholders. Peter Mills particularly appreciated the remark- able efforts of Mr. Elias Salhani and Ms. Ruba Bishara from CropLife Syria and the Debanne Group towards the success of the course. He also commended the inputs of the training centre staff and the facilitation rendered by Nidal As- saed and Mohammad Maher Al-Khaznawi, who contributed to the success of the course. Contact: [email protected]or [email protected]CropLife Africa Middle East Certificates of Competence in Training, with MoA logo Participants pose with facilitators, coordinators and organisers
Transcript
Representing the Plant Science Industry
CropLife Africa Middle East Newsletter
Number 22 September, 2007
What’s happening? • Syrian ToT course
• Sudan ToT course
• Registration issues in Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon
• Counterfeits workshop in Côte d’Ivoire
• Cement kiln incineration work-shop
• Herbicide resistance
• Biotechnology training in Malawi
Facilitator Training in Syria A five day course was conducted in Damascus, Syria for training of personnel from various sec-tors of the MoA of Syria, private sector and the obsolete stocks programme in Syria.
The course was supported by CropLife Africa Middle East and locally organized by the industry association, CropLife Syria.
Twelve participants benefited from the course, which was led and facilitated by, training consult-ant, Peter Mills.
Beside training and certifying 12 master trainers, the course also addressed revision and updating of ToT materials together with the provision of ToT and safe use training materials to partici-pants and stakeholders.
Peter Mills particularly appreciated the remark-able efforts of Mr. Elias Salhani and Ms. Ruba Bishara from CropLife Syria and the Debanne Group towards the success of the course. He also commended the inputs of the training centre staff and the facilitation rendered by Nidal As-saed and Mohammad Maher Al-Khaznawi, who contributed to the success of the course.
CropLife Africa Middle East Certificates of Competence in Training, with MoA logo
Participants pose with facilitators, coordinators and organisers
Representing the Plant Science Industry
Page 2 CropLi fe Afr ica Middle East Newsletter Number 22 September, 2007
A two day sensitization workshop was co-organised by CropLife Côte d’Ivoire on the issue of fraud/counterfeit of pesticides in the eastern region of the country. This workshop was held on August 09-10, in Agnibilékro (Eastern region).
The region is part of the cocoa (also coffee) produc-ing area. Illegal CPPs have been flooding into the country from neighbouring Ghana during the past two years as a consequence of the political crisis, condu-cive to:
• Fraudulent, counterfeit, non registered products on the market in that region;
• Non certified retailers with no knowledge selling pesticides;
• Children handling pesticides in the market;
• Poor storage conditions;
• Market distortions as prices are concerned….
• Presentations/Debates focused on:
• Legislations/Regulations and registration of pesti-cides;
Counterfeits Workshop: CropLife Côte d’Ivoire
• Toxicity and Safety in handling pesticides;
• Repressions of fraud/counterfeit;
• Economic and technical impacts of illegal pesti-cides.
Participants were certified retailers, farmers and farmers based organisations (FBO), local administra-tion and regulations authorities, extension agents from the Ministry of Agriculture, the police and cus-toms.
The district governor committed the regulatory agents, the police and customs to support CropLife Cote d’Ivoire in this initiative and to take necessary actions alleviate/fight the practices, and also re-quested that frequent visits be conducted in the re-gion to sensitize, educate stakeholders for the benefit of the farmers. A committee will be set-up to conduct for follow-up, and then organise meetings from time to time in order to conduct repressive actions if nec-essary.
Participants and local administrative authorities (first row) listening attentively to the workshop recommendations (Photo: courtesy of CropLife Côte d’Ivoire)
Representing the Plant Science Industry
Les Hillowitz, CropLife Africa Middle East’s area coor-dinator for East & Southern Africa was part of the South African Focus Group in the development of a “National Policy on High Temperature Thermal Waste Treatment and Cement Kiln Alternative Fuel and Re-source Use”. The Department of the Environment and Tourism have engaged SINTEF and COWI as con-sultants in this project and both Kåre Karstensen and Jorn Lauridsen were present.
The deliverables of the two consultants were listed as follows: • International literature review (legislation & policy,
best practice, technology, emission standards & guidelines)
• Comparative technology and systems assessment review (cement kiln ADR use)
• Comparative assessment of South African versus international waste profiles.
• Development of a chemical concentration guideline for replacement fuels.
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South Africa: Workshop on Incineration in Cement Kilns
L-R: Alan Smith of Syngenta and Kåre Karstensen of SINTEF
• Development of emission monitoring guidelines. • Technical support to the EIA reviews process and
development of guidelines. • Technical support to the development of required
policies. • Technical support to other related waste initiatives
within DEAT.
Key project timeframes are as follows: • Comparative Technology Assessment (September
2007) • Comparative Assessment of South Africa vs. Inter-
national Waste Profiles (October 2007) • Policy on High Temperature Thermal Waste Treat-
ment (Draft October 2007) • Development of Sector Guidelines for Cement Kiln
AFR use (October – November 2007) • Final Policy & Guidelines in February 2008.
Contact: [email protected] L-R: David Hughes of Plastics Federation of SA, Egmont Otter-mann of PPC, Douw Steyn of Plastics Federation of SA and Hector
Ndou of DEAT
We participated at the South African workshop where concerns at the increasing levels of resistance of nearly all the chemical herbi-cide groupings were recorded. The focus of resistance is the ce-real growing regions of the Western Cape. Speakers included Prof. Charlie Rynhardt, Prof. Andy Cairns and Dr. Jeanetta Du Toit. A draft action plan was developed and will be circulated to all interested parties for comment. Contact: [email protected]
Herbicide Resistance and Impact on Trials
and Commercial Recommendations
Representing the Plant Science Industry
CAMEROON CropLife actively participated on the committee to pro-pose recommendations in order to secure export of cocoa and coffee commodities to EU countries. The committee was set-up following the non-inclusion in Annex 1 of the EU regulations of some active ingredi-ents used for cocoa and coffee protection.
Recommendations as follows were made for which CropLife Cameroon will be responsible:
• Stock inventory and recommendations for uses of existing stocks on other crops;
• Substitution with other less toxic a.i.;
• Training, communication and sensitization of stake-holders for Good Agricultural Practice (GAP) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Responsi-ble Use (RU).
Page 4 CropLi fe Afr ica Middle East Newsletter Number 22 September, 2007
L-R: Felix Jumbe, George Kalungwe, Wisdom Changadeya, Dr David Keetch, Prof. Kwapata, Alick Manda and Dr Alfred Maluwa
COTE D’IVOIRE CropLife Côte d’Ivoire and the government’s Pesti-cides Committee agreed on the following matters in order to clean-up the market and offer reliable prod-ucts, following many complaints from the local indus-try at different meetings. The most important decisions concern:
• Dossier Submission, by providing proper requested information as per the forms;
• Product Status, focusing on endosulfan as unau-thorised active substance on cocoa by end of Oc-tober, 2007 following non inclusion in Annex 1 of EU Regulations. Uses will be restricted to cotton with the micro-encapsulation formulation until ex-haustion of existing stocks (by 2008) in the country.
• Withdrawal of Products, not registered but being used in public health, with repressive actions against counterfeiters.
Biotechnology Training in Malawi During the last week of August, Afri-caBio organized a “Malawian Biotech-nology & Communication Strategy Workshop”. Topics covered comprised of the fol-lowing: • Biosafety Risk Management • Applicants Approach to Biosafety +
Communication. • What do we need to communicate. • How to communicate, to whom do
we need to communicate. • Developing a Biotechnology / Bio-
Supported by CropLife Africa Middle East, the Sudan Agrochemicals Association (SAGA) organized a Master Trainer work-shop for personnel of the Sugar Sector in Sudan held in the city of Wad Medani be-tween 12th-17th August 2007. In this 2007 course, very competently organ-ised by SAGA Sudan, the local association, participants included agronomists, patholo-gists, entomologists, irrigation experts and extension staff, and the industry, all serving the sugar sector. The pictures, right, show trainees participat-ing in a fun exercise on questioning tech-niques (top); participants at the completion of the course in the training room (middle). The focus of the Master Trainers courses is “how to be a good facilitator”, with emphasis on responsible use of pesticides. The courses are five days in duration, consisting of three days of facilitation skills, followed by two days of IPM and responsible use train-ing. Training is very interactive, with many exercises and very participative, with train-ees providing a lot of the inputs in discus-sions. SAGA regarded the ToT as very successful as it is the first time that the association is addressing creation of training capacity in specialized sectors. Secretary-General of SAGA, Mr. Faisal Mohamed Ali promised that the association will continue the trend of addressing training needs in different sec-tors. He declared that the rain-fed sector will be the next to receive Master Trainer activity followed by the vegetable growing sector. This training in Sudan has increased the number of Master Trainers in Sudan to 25. CropLife Africa Middle East’s Master Trainer program to build training capacity throughout the region, has now certified over 700 Mas-ter Trainers. Contact: [email protected] or [email protected]
Page 5 CropLi fe Afr ica Middle East Newsletter Number 22 September, 2007
Facilitator Training in Sudan for Sugarcane Sector
More details on the Master Trainers programme can be found on the CropLife Africa Middle East website, www.croplifeafrica.org. For details on the programme, click “Activities & Projects”, then “Safe Use Training”, then click on “The Master Trainer Programme Bro-chure”. Details of certified Master Trainers can be found on the website. Click “Activities & Projects”, then “Safe Use Training”, then click on “Certified Master Trainers by Country”. Explore the website for other activities and information. Also, contact: [email protected]
Check the website for more about CropLife’s Trainers
Representing the Plant Science Industry
CropLi fe Afr ica Middle East Newsletter Number 22 September, 2007
Page 6
RECENT AND FORTHCOMING ACTIVITIES
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Course for CropLife Sudan, Medani, Sudan: 12 to 16-August-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Course for CropLife Syria, Damascus, Syria: 26 to 30-August-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Course for CropLife South Africa, Thouyondou, South Af-rica: 10 to 14-September-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Cote d’Ivoire, Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire: 17 to 21-September-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Cameroon, Douala, Cam-eroon: 15 to 19-October-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Nigeria, Lagos, Nigeria: 29-September to 02-October-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East, North Africa Middle East Hub Meeting, Amman, Jordan: 06 & 07-November-2007.
• CropLife Africa Middle East, Executive Committee Meeting, Amman, Jordan: 08-November-2007. • CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Senegal, Dakar, Senegal:
19 to 23-November-2007. • CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Burkina Faso, Ouagadou-
gou, Burkina Faso: 26 to 30-November-2007. • CropLife Africa Middle East Train-the-Trainer Follow-up Course for CropLife Mali, Bamako, Mali: 03 to
07-December-2007.
News Snippets
Contributors Ali Mohamed Ali (North Africa Middle East) [email protected] Bama Octave Yao (West-Central Africa) [email protected] Les Hillowitz (East-Southern Africa) [email protected] Peter Mills (Training) [email protected] CropLife Africa Middle East website www.croplifeafrica.org
South African Obsolete Stocks During the period we were tasked by DEAT to undertake a study which would identify the next three provinces for collection. Indicators should include “pesticide usage”, “POP’s” potential”, “level of risk” and “logistical impli-cations”. This was duly completed and will be discussed at the next PMU meeting. Contact: [email protected]
