OTTAWA, August 28, 2012: Effective immediately, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will streamline the registration process for fertilizers and supplements.
In an effort to focus its resources on verifying the safety of fertilizers and supplements, the CFIA will no longer be regulating product efficacy as of 2013. The streamlined registration process is an interim measure that will remain in place until the Agency amends the Fertilizers Regulations to eliminate efficacy requirements.
All regulated fertilizer and supplement products must continue to be safe for humans, plants, animals, and the environment. They must also be properly labelled.
However, under the streamlined registration process, foreign trial data or scientific literature will be accepted as evidence of efficacy. Fertilizers and supplements registered through the streamlined process must clearly identify on their label the limited extent of the evidence used to assess product efficacy.
Until the regulations are amended, applicants who prefer not to have this disclaimer on their label can choose to go through the full efficacy assessment. This includes, for example, a detailed analysis of field trial data from various regions across Canada where the product is intended to be sold. More information on full efficacy data requirements is available on the CFIA website.
If you have questions about the streamlined registration process, please contact the Fertilizer Program
