Comparative Assessment of plant protection products
In certain cases, the Norwegian Food Safety Authority will perform a comparative assessment between a given plant protection product and alternative chemical products, non-chemical products, or other methods.
The legal basis for comparative assessment is article 50 in the plant protection products Regulation (EC) No. 1107/2009.
Comparative assessment (CA) is a national issue, and the Norwegian Food Safety Authority will perform the assessment for the candidate product. The steps of the CA will be included it in the final Part A of the Registration Report. The applicant will be given the possibility to comment, if the conclusion of the CA is negative for the applicant.
Mandatory Comparative Assessment - Article 50.1
If a plant protection product contains an active substance approved as a candidate for substitution, the Member State shall perform a comparative assessment when evaluating the application for authorisation.
The applicant should submit the information to support the process of comparative assessment, by using the template in the Appendix of SANCO/11507/2013.
Optional Comparative Assessment - Article 50.2
The Member State may in exceptional cases also perform an optional CA when evaluating an application for authorisation of a plant protection product not containing a candidate for substitution or a low-risk active substance, if a non-chemical control or prevention method exists for the same use and it is in general use in that Member State.
The applicant should address the following question in the application for the plant protection product:
Does a non-chemical control or prevention method exist for the same use and is it in general use in the Member State?
This information could be included in the Part A of the Registration Report, chapter 4.