US approval decisions up in 2010/11

The US EPA’s Office of Pesticide Programs (OPP) completed 1,554 registration actions under the Pesticide Registration Improvement Act (PRIA) in fiscal 2011 (ended September 30th). That represented an increase of 2.4% from the 1,517 decisions in fiscal 2010 ( Agrow No 611, p 16). The upturn was due mainly to an 11.6% rise in the number of registration decisions for antimicrobials. Decisions for conventional pesticides rose by 0.5% to 1,074 and those for biopesticides were down by 2.9% to 134.