North Dakota's agriculture commissioner wants the federal government to allow farmers access to cheaper Canadian pesticides through a system similar to one he set up on his own eight years ago that drew the ire of U.S. regulators and ended up in federal court.

Roger Johnson's request comes in the wake of a new Canadian program that gives farmers north of the border the ability to buy certain pesticides in the U.S., relabel them with Canadian labels and bring them back across the border, at big cost savings.

"A parallel program … does not exist to allow U.S. producers to purchase and relabel lower-priced Canadian pesticides that are shown to be identical to products registered in the U.S.," Johnson said in a letter to Environmental Protection Agency officials. "This is fundamentally unfair."

EPA spokes-man Dale Kemery said the agency will review Johnson's proposal but that the agency believes efforts are already under way to improve cross-border movement of pesticides.

Johnson notes in his letter that the Canadian program is "almost identical" to a system he set up in 2000 that the EPA said broke the law.

Johnson posted electronic versions of EPA-approved labels for the herbicide Achieve on the state Agriculture Department's Web site. Farmers printed them off, went to Canada to buy the chemical at a cheaper price, relabeled it and brought it back across the border.

The EPA quickly blocked the imports, saying they were illegal. North Dakota sued, but a federal judge in 2001 dismissed the case.

"It begs the question as to why Canadian growers are allowed to purchase and relabel lower-priced U.S. products under the (new) program when U.S. growers were prohibited from purchasing and relabeling a lower-priced Canadian product in 2000," Johnson said in his letter to EPA.

He is asking federal regulators to set up a system similar to Canada's Grower Requested Own Use program. If that is not possible, Johnson said, he wants EPA to stop the relabeling of U.S. chemicals under the Canadian program until that practice is proven legal.

Kemery said a new program allows limited relabeling of some Canadian pesticides for import into the U.S. Johnson said the Own Use Import program has different rules than the new Canadian program, is "cumbersome" and "has had virtually no use."

Jay Vroom, president and chief executive of CropLife America, said the pesticide trade association based in Washington, D.C., agrees with Johnson that pesticide products should not be illegally relabeled for export.

He said CropLife America also tried to discourage Johnson's plan eight years ago.

Vroom, Johnson and Kemery agree that a better means for cross-border movement of pesticides is the NAFTA label process, but that system has been slow to grow. The system allows pesticide manufacturers to obtain a single product label for use in both countries, under the North America Free Trade Agreement.

It is aimed at saving farmers money while cutting down on inventory management expenses and bureaucratic red tape for chemical companies. But more than a year and a half after regulators in the U.S. and Canada announced the program, calling it a milestone in the reduction of trade barriers, only six chemicals have a NAFTA label, with one more expected to be approved in a couple of weeks. As a comparison, the new Canadian program has 12 approved chemicals, with eight more expected to be added by the 2009 growing season.

"We would be better served by focusing our time and effort to encourage the widespread adoption of NAFTA labeling rather than stopgap, short-term solutions such as the (new Canadian program)," Johnson said in his letter.

Kemery agreed, saying "the best means to allow for this cross-border movement of pesticide products is through use of NAFTA labels."

Jim Gray, the lead farm chemical regulator in North Dakota, said the NAFTA label process has had problems - such as different import requirements and costs for U.S. and Canadian farmers - but also some success. The six chemicals with labels are widely used by farmers, he said, and progress is being made in the development of "e-labeling."

The process would involve having a "base" label on a chemical with such information as ingredients and emergency contact information, along with a Web site with more detailed information such as specific requirements for use in certain farming areas.

Gray, a member of an EPA group working on e-labeling, said the more user-friendly process could help the NAFTA label system. He said the group is still working on such issues as how a site would be set up and hosted, and what type of products would be included.

Vroom said the slow development of the NAFTA label process is "an inherent bureaucracy matter," but that he hopes as many as 10 more chemicals might have the labels by the next growing season.

"It needs to continue to accelerate for it to be the true, meaningful, lasting solution we all are interested in," he said.

Said Johnson: "Until we see widespread use of NAFTA labeling … we need to ensure that programs such as (Canada's) are available to growers on both sides of the border."