Registration

Question: Why are the products sold by Alpha Agri-Products Inc. not registered with a federal or provincial agency?

Registration with the CFIA or PMRA is only necessary if specific claims are made on the label. Only products that claim a fertilizer, fungicide, herbicide, etc. fall under this legislation.

Question: What are the obstacles to pursuing registration for small businesses?

The process of registering a product in Canada is sometimes necessary pending on label; however, it is very lengthy (several years or longer) and requires considerable capital. For a small family-owned business this is a major challenge. In most cases, the product seeking registration cannot be sold during the time of registration. This makes it difficult to finance the required trials and registration fees.

For example, to register a product used in corn, trials would be conducted in a number of regions of a given province (e.g. four trials in South-Western Ont., four in Eastern Ont. etc.). Each trial would cost thousands of dollars and would have to be completed for a minimum of 3 years on these sites. If a company wanted to broaden the registration to multiple provinces, trials in these provinces would follow the same protocol. This process would have to be done with each type of crop the product was to be registered for. As you can see it would be financially draining. Though the trial process is scientifically sound it is designed for companies with deep financial pockets.

As in any business, the cost of production, research and registration are included in the price of the product. Pursuing registration would add a significant amount to the cost of products which would be past on to the producer.

Question: How can you know that non-registered products are effective?

Many smaller businesses have opted for a less costly and very effective trial process to verify the effectiveness of their products. The model they chose has been used in thousands of operations over decades. This model is the “on farm” site by site comparison. Because what is most important is not if the product works on a research farm but if it works on yours. This type of “hands on” is done daily in livestock performance trials and seed trials. The same takes place with fertilizers, equipment and other services available to increase your profitability.

A registered product is not a total guarantee that a product will perform, the same can be said of non-registered products. On any given product, the more data that is available to the consumer, the greater likelihood that the product’s performance will match the data.

We believe that products need to have good returns on your farm, and you should be the judge. A small side by side test strip will often convince you whether a product is profitable or not.