A Sault Ste. Marie forest biotech company that knows how to kill the emerald ash borer is still waiting on Ottawa's approval to contain an outbreak in the city.
Joe Meating, president of BioForest Technologies Inc., has an all-natural pesticide and special tree injection device to control the population of the voracious little green bug that's wiped out ash trees across the U.S. Midwest and is now in southern Ontario. The bug is now in a Sault Ste. Marie residential neighbourhood.
But the company's TreeAzin formula, derived from the neem tree in India, has not been formally registered by Health Canada for use in this country.
Surprisingly, the formula, which was first developed in a Canadian Forest Services lab in the Sault, was recently registered for commercial use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
"In Canada, we've been spinning our wheels for eight months, no response (from Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency)," says Meating. "It took us six months to get registered in the States and we're still waiting for a meeting here in Canada. It's been very, very slow."
A Health Canada spokesperson was looking into the matter.
The company was granted emergency registration by Health Canada to temporarily sell TreeAzin to tree care companies in the Windsor-Essex County area this year to contain a major outbreak of the emerald ash borer.
Meating says the 10-employee company's plans are to sell TreeAzin to American to landscaping and forest management companies. He plans to speak with a large multi-national U.S. company in October to work out a partnership deal.
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