2014, January: Training workshop on efficacy data and efficacy evaluation manual

Addis Ababa, 8-10 January 2014

 

In June 2013 a draft Evaluation manual was drafted with assistance from Linge Agroconsultancy (The Netherlands). In January 2014 PHRD personnel (evaluators) was trained on efficacy data evaluation and this manual during a 3-day workshop.

Paul de Boer, the international consultant of Linge Agroconsultancy, animated the training workshop. The training consisted for a major part of exercises with practical examples.

On the first day, Alemayehu Woldeamanuel (PHRD, MoA) gave a presentation on the new Directive and its contents on the aspect of efficacy. In this Directive the evaluation manual for efficacy is integrated. After this, the evaluation system in the EU (and The Netherlands) was presented and several documents that are used in this system were showed. The first part of the working sessions was preceded by an presentation on the Table of Intended Uses (ToIU) and label texts. The importance of a complete and correct ToIU that matches the label text was explained. In exercise several label texts had to be translated to a matching ToIU.

The next day, the data requirements for the aspect of efficacy were presented with respect to the number of trials and the type of trials e.g. efficacy, phytotoxicity, yield, propagation purpose trials, etc. After the presentation, in an exercise, the data requirements were discussed for a number of ToIUs.

The presentation on the last day dealt with trial quality and the results. When is a trial acceptable, when is a product acceptable? With this presentation in mind, a working session with real dossiers was started. For each of the dossiers it was evaluated to which extend it met up to the data requirements and the quality aspects for an efficacy trial. The interpretation of the results was also discussed.  To finalise the training, the most important “rules� for efficacy evaluation were highlighted.