Development of a risk assessment procedure for pesticide application equipment within the framework of article 8 of the EU Directive 2009/128 and development of specific inspection procedures

The EU Directive 2009/128/EC on the sustainable use of pesticides requires that Member States shall ensure that all pesticide application equipment in professional use shall be subject to inspections at regular intervals. Article 8.3 of the Directive allows the Member States to derogate from the mandatory inspection at regular intervals or to apply different timetables and inspection intervals for certain types of pesticide application equipment based on a risk assessment for human health, food safety and environment and an assessment of the scale of use. In order to answer to the Directive requirements, the project APESTICON aims to develop and validate a risk assessment protocol, apply it on the equipment in use in Belgium and develop inspection protocols for the equipment not subject to exemption and not subject to inspection until now in Belgium. First results about the development of a risk assessment method will be presented at the symposium.