The IR-4 Project at North Carolina State University has received a five-year, $10 million award from USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service to help US specialty crop growers overcome pesticide residue barriers in export markets.

The problem it targets is that a pesticide registered in the United States does not automatically have an internationally recognised maximum residue limit (MRL). Missing or different standards can shut a crop out of a market even when growers followed US rules, affecting high-value products such as citrus, tree nuts, grapes, sweet potatoes, berries, dried fruit and vegetables.

In its first year IR-4 will set up an Export Market Access Platform to identify, rank and track residue-related export problems, feeding them into its stakeholder process. It will then generate extra residue data alongside domestic studies, fill data gaps that block Codex MRLs, and test practical ways for growers to reduce residues. Results will be packaged for the Joint FAO/WHO Meeting on Pesticide Residues and the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

"Access to international markets depends on having the right science and residue standards in place," said Jonathan Sarager of Western Growers, who chairs IR-4's commodity liaison committee, adding that fast-changing global rules also demand quicker adoption of novel tools such as biological inputs.

The award, part of $13.5 million in new Assisting Specialty Crop Exports investments, expands IR-4's work under executive director Lina Quesada-Ocampo, who joined in March 2026. Founded in 1963, IR-4 helps register conventional pesticides and biopesticides for specialty crops and minor uses. The release came from the IR-4 Project.

Source: Morning Ag Clips