Review of NZS8409 (Sept 2019)

Published 23 September 2019

NZS8409:2004 is a New Zealand Standard for the Management of Agrichemicals.  The change in the regulatory environment relating to hazardous substances in December 2018 has made a review necessary.  NZAET is leading this review. 

Project initiation

Nominations for members of the Standards Development Committee are currently being sought from industry groups.  These will be presented to the StandardsNZ board in early October for approval.  The first meeting of the Committee will then take place.

Funding

Whilst much of the input into the process is on a voluntary basis from interested parties, funding is required to meet the project management costs and the cost of the StandardsNZ process.  Contributions have been sought from industry groups and NZAET is also contributing.  In addition, we are grateful to Agmardt for contributing to this project.

Scope of NZS8409

The first step in the review is to establish the scope of the new document.  A scoping workshop, facilitated by Standards New Zealand, was held in June 2018.  The outcome of this meeting and subsequent discussions are set out in the "Scoping report for the revision of NZS 8409:2004 Management of agrichemicals ".
There was wide agreement on both the need for the standard and the need to review it. 

Four possible additional areas to cover in the Standard are being considered:

• Fumigants - used by the logging industry and in horticulture for soil sterilisation as well for import/export, there is mixed support for the inclusion of fumigants in the new Standard
• VTAs (Vertebrate Toxic Agents) - as this stage there is general agreement not to include VTAs within the scope of the new Standard
• Dairy detergents and sanitisers - there is support for inclusion of detergents and sanitisers in the revised standard, partly to reflect the increased use in horticulture and agriculture to control the spread of disease between properties
• Domestic use - it has generally been agreed that domestic use is outside the scope of the standard as the regulatory framework for non-workplaces is very different to workplaces.  However, the standard will remain a good source of information on good practice for all users of agrichemicals.

Want to be involved?

Industry representatives will be seeking views from others in their industry as part of the development process.  There will also be a full public consultation on the final draft.  If you are keen to be involved, please email jane.lamb@growsafe.co.nz  or one of the members of the Standards Development Committee when they are appointed.