Portuguese sprayers inspections: issues to overcome

Abstract

The EN 13790 and agricultural products certification standards stimulated the sprayers inspections in a yearly basis in Portugal. Since 2006 Centro Operativo e Tecnológico Hortofrutícola Nacional (COTHN) inspected almost 3000 sprayers throughout the all country, including field crops sprayers, air assisted sprayers for bush and tree crops and a few hand held sprayers for greenhouse crops. In 2009 and 2010, Ambi3Q and A.CANO began with sprayers inspections in the north and south of Portugal, respectively. The implementation of the article 8 of the European Directive CE 128/09 in all member states is an important step to minimize environmental impacts, protect human health and improve plant protection efficacy. However it is not an easy task due to the characteristics of agriculture and sprayers in use of each country.The actual legislation concerning the construction and inspection of sprayers was published in the last 3 years. According to the article 8 of the European Directive, the Official Service Direcção-Geral de Agricultura e Desenvolvimento Rural (DGADR) of the Agriculture Ministry, developed the Portuguese law Decreto-Lei n.º 86/2010 de 15 de Julho, in 2010, to impose that mounted sprayers, trailed sprayers and self-propelled sprayers must be inspected and approved before 26 November, 2016.The sprayers inspections carried out in Portugal should be an important tool to assess the sprayers in use and decide the best action plan to implement the article 8. Despite the sprayers inspections had been done mostly as a consequence of the European and National market rules, and so, the data collected are a rough sample of the real Portuguese situation, it is possible to observe that only one-third, of the sprayers inspected until now, have less than 5 years old. This means that the majority of the sprayers may not be in accordance with the standards and the article 8 of the European Directive.