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Bystander Resident Orchard Vineyard (BROV) Re-entry Project Report

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidance document on non-dietary exposure 1 identified a key need for additional data on transfer coefficients (TCs) and dislodgeable foliar residue (DFR) values to produce more realistic exposure assessments for situations in which workers re-enter treated crops. For grapes in particular, there is currently a lack of TC information and, in the absence of European data, the EFSA guidance recommends the use of US TC values (which are incomplete and lacking in transparency). The European Crop Protection Association (ECPA) has identified that this data gap may result in the failure of EU registrations for crop protection products for grapes. The BROV [Bystander Resident Orchard Vineyard] re-entry project aims to establish (and to propose to EFSA) a set of European TC values for regulatory use in worker re-entry exposure assessments for relevant activities in vineyards.

Summary and template for BROV TC report_Final_01072020.pdf

New TC values have been proposed for vineyard workers handling treated grapevines when carrying out harvesting and crop maintenance activities. The evaluation was performed by a joint working group (ECPA BROV re-entry project) chaired by the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in cooperation with the German Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL); TNO Netherlands; the German Federal Research Centre for Cultivated Plants, Julius Kühn Institut (JKI), the UK Silsoe Spray Applications Unit (SSAU), ECPA and as an observer EFSA. The data base underlying the proposed new TC values is originating from re-entry exposure studies in combination with concurrent DFR studies, which were performed by industry to support product authorizations and on behalf of industry associations (ECPA and UIPP).

Final BROV re-entry project report rev 1.pdf

The regulatory summary has been provided by the ECPA expert group to support tier 2 assessments of re-entry worker exposure in grapes. ECPA member companies may use this summary for inclusion in product dossiers in case that risk assessments based on the EFSA default assumption for transfer coefficients (guidance document 2014) fail to show safe uses.