Health Canada is seeking public input on proposed guidelines for the use of pesticides in cannabis and industrial hemp cultivation, reflecting concerns that the expanding industry may face increased pest control challenges. The agency’s Pest Management Agency is particularly interested in identifying risks associated with ingestion or inhalation of products from treated crops, particularly when fumigated or vaporized. Traditionally, Canadian cannabis growers have relied on microbial products and biopesticides such as rapeseed oil, sulphur or garlic powder to control pests. However, as the industry grows, there are concerns that more severe disease, insect and weed pressures may necessitate the use of traditional chemical pesticides. The proposed guidance stresses that in order to ensure the safety of cannabis and hemp products for human consumption, inhalation and dietary risk assessment is essential for the registration of pesticides. The guidelines apply to both greenhouse and field crops and include specific labelling requirements. Pesticide labels should include statements prohibiting certain uses of treated crops where the associated risks have not been thoroughly assessed or are considered unacceptable. In addition, labels should warn against feeding treated industrial hemp to humans or livestock and against using treated plants in smoking or steaming products unless these uses have been evaluated and found safe. Health Canada has opened a 60-day public comment period from 8 August 2024 to gather feedback on the proposed regulations. Amidst these regulatory developments, the area of permitted hemp fields in Canada has declined significantly, reaching its lowest level since tracking began in 2018. Only 11,861 hectares were recorded in 2023, compared to 13,589 hectares in 2022. The cereal sector dominates hemp production, but the cereal and fibre sectors also saw their areas more than halve in 2023 compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Health Canada is seeking public input on proposed guidelines for the use of pesticides in cannabis and industrial hemp cultivation, reflecting concerns that the expanding industry may face increased pest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3121"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3137,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3121\/revisions\/3137"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hunhemp.eu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}