Reassessment of registered vertebrate toxic agent (VTA) products containing brodifacoum

Under section 29 of the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines Act (ACVM) 1997, New Zealand Food Safety has proposed to reassess all registered VTA products containing the active ingredient brodifacoum.

New Zealand Food Safety proposes to amend the regulatory controls covering the manufacture, sale, storage, and use of brodifacoum. Proposed changes include:

• imposing certain restrictions on the quantities of VTA products that persons can buy, store, or use, which depend on the target pest and the environment in which it is to be used.
• ensuring commercial users of large amounts of brodifacoum have the appropriate training
• requiring auditable sales records to be recorded by retail outlets for tracking purposes
• restricting VTA use to bait stations unless specific approval is given by MPI
• designating a person responsible for the removal or clean-up of baits once a baiting program has ceased
• bringing the conditions for use into alignment with those of some of New Zealand's trading partners.

We began the work in 2019. We reviewed the conditions of registration applied to all registered VTAs along with planning for a proposed reassessment in 2020 when public consultation would take place.

11 June 2020: Formal approval of the proposed reassessment of brodifacoum.

For the first public consultation, we asked for feedback on a proposal to restrict the sale and use of brodifacoum as a VTA.

Find out about the 2021 consultation and the submissions we received

After reviewing the feedback received from the first public consultation, we refined the proposed changes.

Another public consultation ran from 30 October 2023 to 26 January 2024.

Proposed controls for the manufacture, sale, storage, and use of products containing brodifacoum

Release of the submissions was initially expected in August 2024. However, further work to review and refine the proposed changes in response to the feedback received in the submissions has been done.

More information on this will be released as part of the summary of submissions document when it's released.

The target date for release is May/June 2025.

We plan to hold workshops online via Microsoft Teams with intentions to discuss the feedback in the summary of submissions and New Zealand Food Safety responses, along with any further refinements to the proposed controls.

We will then decide whether to progress with the proposed reassessment of brodifacoum.

The target date for making and publishing a decision is to be confirmed but will be in late 2025.