Seminar: "Regulatory challenges in a changing global pesticide complex", by Dr. Kees Jansen

ICTA-UAB will host the event "Regulatory challenges in a changing global pesticide complex", a seminar and discussion featuring Kees Jansen, with Christian Berndt, Finn Mempel, and Marion Werner.

Seminar: "Regulatory challenges in a changing global pesticide complex"

 Speaker: Dr. Kees Jansen,Wageningen UR

Date: Thursday, July 13^th 2023
Time: 11:00 – 13:30
Venue: Room Z/032 at ICTA-UAB

This is a seminar and discussion featuring Kees Jansen, with Christian Berndt, Finn Mempel, and Marion Werner"

Ownership of and access to risk data is a contentious issue in the process of pesticide registration. I will review some recent developments in order to outline urgent research questions. The first topic involves a recent law in Costa Rica that implies “governance by parroting” as it takes regulatory decisions made elsewhere as decisive in the pesticide registration process. A second topic concerns the notion of data exclusivity as figuring in international trade agreements and used to control who can access risk data. Finally, I will reflect on the possible consequences of the enlarged role of Chinese capital/state in pesticide production and trade for risk data politics. My introduction will be speculative and question oriented.

Kees Jansen is an associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Wageningen UR. He works on political ecology and agricultural and food technology in relation to international development (www.keesjansen.eu). He studies social justice and risk perspectives. Current projects involve the multi-level governance of plant diseases, the global governance of pesticides and the greening of the agrarian question (agro-ecology, food sovereignty, the conventionalization of organic agriculture).

Discussion: 

1. Regulating in the dark: Pesticide use data dilemmas and strategies

•  Dr. Werner will present results from her research group’s analysis of the FAO database, including a recent major revision to China’s pesticide use data.
• Marion Werner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY).
   

2.  Mapping the pesticide industry: What do we know about the geographies of pesticide production and trade?

• Dr. Mempel and Dr. Brendt will present insights from ongoing research and outlook. 
• Finn Mempel is a postdoc at the University of Zurich (UZH). Christian Brendt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at UZH.

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