For pesticide exports, registration must generally be obtained in the foreign country first. Through registration, one can find relatively long-term and stable customers. Everyone now has a certain awareness of the importance of registration work.
Registration materials are prepared by people. What knowledge must those who prepare registration materials possess? Broadly speaking, they need knowledge in the following areas: first, computers; second, professional English; third, chemical knowledge; fourth, plant protection. On this basis, if one works on more products and comes into contact with the data requirements of more countries before preparing registration materials, one will not be deterred.
Computer knowledge
Computer knowledge is the foundation. So what exactly should a pesticide registration professional learn? General document processing is something everyone must master; much of today's material is copied and moved around. The key is to master the use of WORD. Each country's format is different, and even the typesetting may run from right to left, exactly opposite to what we see every day. If you have not learned WORD well, you will feel that the characters you type do not obey you at all: you want them here, but they refuse, and in the end your head will spin. I have seen this situation several times, mainly with the registration texts of Arabic-speaking countries. When faced with this, if it becomes really troublesome, you can retype the text format, or use the format painter to change the format to left-to-right, and then it will obey you. In addition, texts often involve inserting images, which is also a key point to master.
Besides learning WORD, you must also learn to find materials online. When you find materials, file them by category into the corresponding folder for each product; only then will the materials you find be useful, and you will be able to use them again later. If materials are not stored in each product's place, they are as good as useless. Registration staff spend most of their time finding materials, and searching online is a shortcut; it is best to find English materials, which can be used directly. There are many good sources online: government departments such as the US EPA's pesticide materials, and the materials of large multinational pesticide manufacturers, are very useful and can be directly drawn upon. These major sources should be recorded well, classified by their characteristics, to form your own database.
There are countless websites on the INTERNET, and it is basically impossible to look at and check them one by one, especially for new products. At such times, you need to use portal sites, search sites and search software. Sites like YAHOO are portal sites, and GOOGLE is a typical search site; I think everyone is familiar with these. At present, the best Chinese search site is Baidu, and the best English search site is GOOGLE. You can enter keywords in these sites to find relevant materials; I will not say more here. What I use most now is search software, whose working principle is to call on many search sites and portal sites to search together, so the search scope is much larger, the materials are much more concentrated, and time is saved. The search software I use is COPERNIC AGENT, downloadable at http://www.copernic.com/en/index.html.
As for the format of materials: online materials today, besides HTML and WORD formats, are mainly in PDF format — for example, most of the files on the EPA are PDF files. To read this format you need Adobe's ACROBAT READER software. Generally you can copy it and use it directly in the text.
When making registration documents, you often have to deal with the English labels of products. Simple English labels can be made with WORD; more complex ones require CORELDRAW software. Furthermore, much English material may be on paper; a relatively simple method is to scan these materials into the computer, so that they can be called up conveniently later.
Professional English
When I first started doing registration materials, I originally thought my English was quite good, but when I got a registration text, the literal meaning seemed understandable, yet after thinking for a long time I still did not understand it clearly; only after slow deliberation did I figure out the precise meaning. So the professional vocabulary in pesticide registration texts still needs to be studied and understood well. Professional vocabulary is mainly of two kinds: on the one hand chemical, on the other agronomic and toxicological. You can record these terms specially and build your own specialised mini-dictionary. Then future work will be very convenient.
Chemical knowledge
Registration texts involve chemical knowledge in many places, for example: the physicochemical properties of products, production processes, analytical methods and residue analysis. These parts directly require chemical knowledge; without it, one really cannot cope with this job, let alone overcome the technical barriers set up by competitors and engage in close combat. In 1994–95 I once handled a registration in a relatively developed country. I spent several months completing the basic materials and submitted them to that country's pesticide registration authority. At that time, Chinese pesticides were still rarely registered in that country. On the one hand, the local pesticide registration authority did not know much about the quality of our pesticides; on the other hand, a large multinational company lobbied there, saying that Chinese pesticide production had no quality control, that quality was inferior, and that there were many reaction by-products. As a result, that country's pesticide registration authority raised many quality-control questions, such as the quality control of raw materials, the quality control of intermediates, which by-products are produced at each reaction step, how you control side reactions, and what the mechanism of the side reactions is. I spent more than a week studying the relevant materials in detail and wrote out the reaction mechanism of each step and the possible side reactions and by-products, finally rising to well-known organic reactions. In this way I convinced the pesticide registration authority and the product obtained registration. Imagine if I had not studied this speciality — could I have explained the reasoning? And would others have accepted the reasoning I gave? So without professional knowledge, one may perhaps cope and patch things together, but once a technical problem or a more serious technical barrier arises, one will be at a loss.
Plant protection
Each pesticide has its own use; only by applying the right medicine to the right disease can a pesticide fulfil its purpose — otherwise it is poison. When I first came into contact with all kinds of pests and diseases, I felt deeply that my ability fell short and I could only respond passively. There are also some toxicological issues — acute toxicity, sub-acute toxicity, chronic toxicity — involving hygiene and medical matters, which I learnt on the job before getting a little insight. Registration texts today generally require a full set of toxicity reports; if you have knowledge in this area, after finding the data you can write them yourself, since experiments have strict standards, and doing so can speed up progress. Many data cannot be found at once, so you can calculate them as a reference. Calculation methods generally include taking a value from an approximate range, calculating by formula, and drawing on the data of products of similar nature, to obtain a reference figure.
This work places relatively high demands on personnel and requires a long accumulation of experience. For pesticide registration personnel, one must especially endure loneliness; a superficial taste will not produce results. For the leaders of an organisation, their understanding of the importance of this work must also keep up, otherwise they will not be able to retain excellent talent to do this work.
This short article aims to offer a modest spur; colleagues who are interested are welcome to discuss it together and do this work well.