Heart of sustainable agriculture

We put stewardship at the heart of our contribution to sustainable agriculture. The stewardship commitment of the plant science industry takes on a lifecycle approach, ensuring the responsible and ethical management of a crop protection or biotechnology product – from its initial discovery through to its research and development phase, on to production and continuing through distribution and use, storage, and finally, its disposal or phase out.

Lifecycle approach: Crop protection stewardship

Our stewardship commitment
We are committed to promoting full and effective stewardship across the life cycle of the plant science industry's products from development through field activities. Our member companies endorse the Revised FAO Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides(English pdf, 298K).

CropLife Asia and its member companies continually carry out stewardship activities supporting the complete spectrum of stakeholders in the region. This section introduces our stewardship activities, demonstrating our serious commitment to people, productivity and protection of crops, health and the environment on which livelihoods depend.

• The value of stewardship
• Responsible-use training of farmers and distributors
• Integrated pest management for sustainable agriculture
• Container management and disposal
• Outreach, public health and community education

Lifecycle approach: Biotechnology stewardship

CropLife Asia promotes a lifecycle approach to the management of plant biotechnology products. The stewardship lifecycle for plant biotechnology starts with gene discovery, and includes plant development, seed production, seed marketing and distribution, crop production, crop utilisation, through to product phase-out.  The overall aim of the stewardship approach is to maximise the benefits, and minimise any risk, from using plant biotechnology products.

CropLife Asia recommends the "Compliance management of confined field trials of genetically engineered plants" as a resource for those undertaking confined field trials of genetically modified crops.

Field-testing of genetically modified crops provides scientists with an opportunity to collect information on environmental interactions and agronomic performance that is critical to a full environmental safety assessment required by regulatory authorities. To ensure environmental protection, this field-testing occurs under confined conditions that include requirements for reproductive isolation, site monitoring, and post-harvest land use restrictions.