In October 2020, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) brought into force their updated Fertilizer Act and Regulations. These changes have been almost 10 years in the making and introduce several updates to various topics, including:

• Registration exemptions
• Labeling requirements

This renewal also provides a three-year transitional period that allows companies to comply with either set of regulations until coming into full force October 2023.

So what do these changes mean for Plant-Prod products?

Registration Exemptions

Plant-Prod blended water soluble fertilizers (NPK blends) have previously fallen under the Specialty Fertilizer Exemption from registration. While we have always maintained compliance with the requirements and standards set out by the Fertilizer Act and its Regulations, we have not needed to register these blends.
Under the modernized regulations, our blends continue to be exempt from registration, now falling under the Mixtures Exemption. To meet this exemption, all materials within the blends must be already registered with CFIA, or appear on their List of Primary Fertilizer and Supplement Materials.

This Mixtures Exemption also applies to micronutrients. As a result, our blended micronutrient products will be considered exempt from registration. While we would prefer to maintain these registrations, CFIA will no longer allow them to be registered once considered exempt.

Despite these exemptions from registrations, our products and their raw materials are still subject to regulation and meet all the prescribed standards at the time of import and sale.

Labeling Requirements

With this new exemption comes new labeling requirements. You will slowly start to notice the following statement on our labels:

Active ingredients derived from registered and exempt materials.

This statement indicates that we are following the record keeping requirements applicable to these mixtures. These include:

1. registration numbers of all registered fertilizers and supplements in the mixture;
2. terms of exempt materials as they appear on the list of materials;
3. any other information to substantiate that the product is exempt; and
4. any other information relating to compliance with the Fertilizers Regulations in terms of product safety:
   • list of ingredients and their sources
   • description of the manufacturing method
   • results of applicable analyses for contaminants (if available): heavy metals, nutrient guarantees etc.

To us, this record keeping is not new. We have been maintaining this information, along with retained samples of our products as part of our Quality Control Program for years. We are pleased to be able to provide any additional information when needed to our customers.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us – mppi@plantprod.com