Observations regarding crop protection from the 2022 year

Dec 27, 2022

I have had the pleasure of serving as Acting Manager, Crop Protection, of the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada (FVGC) in 2022, and welcome the return of Caleigh Hallink-Irwin to this role in January 2023. During the past year, I have witnessed the ‘perfect storm’ regarding crop protection issues facing fruit and vegetable growers in Canada. In this article, I outline some of these concerns and comment on what FVGC is doing to address them.

Crop protection concerns

To begin with, the Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) is mandated under the Pest Control Products Act to re-evaluate crop protection products every 15 years. This process has led to the loss of some of these products, or at least some of their uses, thereby impacting the control of insects, plant diseases and weeds in fruits and vegetables.

For example, the loss of most uses of the multi-site mode of action (MoA) ethylene bis-dithiocarbamate fungicides has left growers with alternative single-site MoA products that may be less efficacious and more prone to the development of pest resistance. Furthermore, some of those products that remain registered have had use restrictions added to their labels such as longer, agronomically unfeasible pre-harvest intervals (PHIs) or restricted entry intervals (REIs).

Where we are seeing resistance to crop protection products in the management of horticultural crop pests, some products with new MoAs are being developed but they are scarcely keeping up with current and anticipated future needs.

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Border View Farms is a mid-sized family farm that sits on the Ohio-Michigan border. My name is Nathan. I make and edit all of the videos posted here. I farm with my dad, Mark and uncle, Phil. Our part-time employee, Brock, also helps with the filming. 1980 was our first year in Waldron where our main farm is now. Since then we have grown the operation from just a couple hundred acres to over 3,000. Watch my 500th video for a history of our farm I filmed with my dad.

I started making these videos in the fall of 2019 as a way to help show what I do on a daily basis as a farmer. Agriculture is different from any other industry and I believe the more people that are showing their small piece of agriculture, helps to build our story. We face unique challenges and stressful situations but have some of the most rewarding payoffs in the end. I get to spend everyday doing what I love, raising my kids on the farm, and trying to push our farm to be better every year. I hope that I can address questions or concerns that you might have about farms and agriculture.