EPA Updates Method for Establishing Economic Minor Use

For Release:  March 23, 2018

EPA has updated and clarified the criteria for classifying a particular pesticide use on a crop or other use (for example a public health use) as a “minor use.”  FIFRA defines a minor use as one that does not provide “sufficient economic incentive” for pesticide companies (i.e., registrants) to register or keep their products registered for certain uses.  In some cases, this update would broaden the definition of minor use for specific pesticides, providing more opportunities for incentives to register pesticides for minor uses.

The Pesticide Registration Notice (PRN 2018-1) explains that EPA will now also consider the following factors (in addition to considering the costs of generating data) in evaluating “sufficient economic incentive”:

• the time between incurring costs of generating data for registration and obtaining revenue from product sales;
• the multiple years over which revenue is generated; and
• the costs of producing and distributing the product.

This Notice also explains how additional information can be used to inform the analysis and interpret the results. The revised approach can be applied to conventional pesticides, biopesticides, and antimicrobial pesticides to determine whether they meet the definition of minor use.  Most commenters on the proposed update were broadly supportive of the approach as being simple and appropriate.

The final PRN 2018-1 (which supersedes 97-2) can be viewed in docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2015- 0814 at www.regulations.gov.