CropLife Commends Japanese Colleagues for Innovation, Trade Policy Opportunity

Posted by Jackie Pucci|13 March 2014

Speaking in Tokyo this week to the executive board of the Japan Crop Protection Association (JCPA), CropLife America (CLA) President and CEO Jay Vroom thanked the Japanese industry for its continued innovative contributions that benefit the world’s farmers.

“A recent report in Farm Chemicals International magazine forecasts that 14 new active ingredient crop protection molecules will be commercialized in the world this year. This is a substantial increase in the pace of innovation from recent years, and of the 14 in 2014, six are coming from Japanese companies,” Vroom noted. “In an age where pressure is on farmers to produce food, fiber and fuel like never before, innovative new crop protection tools have never been more vital. Thank you to the Japanese industry for leading in this key category of our industry.”
Noting the continued predictions that the global population will top 10 billion in coming decades as well as the demand for higher quality diets, Vroom remarked that the doubling of farm output demands that “our industry continue to advance science-based solutions to help feed a hungry world.” He also noted current challenges with rapid changes in pest resistance as another key factor to continue advancing science solutions.
Vroom continued that Japan’s joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) along with the U.S. and 10 other countries is a promising development.

“Agriculture advances when our farmers and our input technologies are allowed to flow to their best comparative advantage geographies. Enhanced trade competition and productive response overall helps advance farm productivity, and can also smooth regulatory coherence and provide innovative companies with more certainty of investment, thanks to intellectual property protection,” Vroom observed. “TPP can greatly benefit the modern crop protection industry and farmers in all 12 nations negotiating the agreement.”

CLA and JCPA are both regional association members of the global federation CropLife International (CLI).