About ENTAM 2.0

About ENTAM

ENTAM 2.0 is the network constituted by the dedicated testing stations in those European countries which have signed an agreement on shared activities. These activities have the final purpose of conducting standardized tests on the performance and environmental aspects of agricultural machinery and components. After obtaining the test results in a specific “test report” issued by the test center of interest, the manufacturer can apply for recognition to the ENTAM 2.0 secretariat.
For machines and components that obtain ENTAM 2.0 recognition, a Test Report in English is issued with the recognition numbers of the interested members.
ENTAM 2.0 has taken up the legacy of ENTAM, focusing, currently, on pesticide application equipment (PAE) and its components.
 
Membership
The Network consists of 6 Members from European, with a view to wider participation soon.
The ENTAM 2.0 testing stations are based in Italy (ENAMA Servizi in collaboration with DISAFA, University of Turin), France (INRAE), Spain (CMA) and Germany (JKI) as full members while Austria (BLT) and The Netherlands (SKL) are observers.
ENTAM 2.0 testing stations reflect the countries where the majority of large and medium-size manufacturers of PAE in Europe are situated. In the past 155 successful tests were carried out by ENTAM. The cooperation amongst these partners within the ENTAM framework can look back on a more than 20-year-long, trusting, and successful partnership. Building on this many years of experience, ENTAM 2.0 aims at contributing to the challenges of the future by offering:

• Voluntary certification of conformity of plant protection machinery according to DIN/EN/ISO 16119 Standard.
• Voluntary certification of agronomical and environmental performance of a sprayer/sprayer parts, e.g. spray drift reduction, pesticide savings, dose reduction.
• Development of an extended toolbox of methods for PAE certification based on a combined approach of measurements and computer simulation.

 
 
Advantage for the Manufacturers: machine tested only once and mutual recognition
The advantage of ENTAM 2.0 for manufacturers is that PAE only needs to be tested once, and these tests can then be recognized in other EU member states. The key to this lies in the harmonization of testing procedures and the mutual recognition of test results among ENTAM 2.0 members and, where possible, observer and further countries.
 
 
ENTAM 2.0 and the challenges of the future
In the context of the EU's goals aiming at significant  reduction in pesticide use and associated risks, ENTAM 2.0 can make a significant contribution to their implementation by giving support especially to manufactures without own capabilities for testing or those, which want to have an independent third party testing on their products. In addition to the existing ENTAM 2.0 testing of features defined in the harmonized standard EN/ISO 16119, ENTAM 2.0 members also possess extensive experience in characterizing PAE regarding specific attributes such as drift reduction and pesticide savings. These are precisely the features expected from PAE (e.g. present EUPAF, EFSA activities)  in the future to provide a technical contribution to the realization the EU strategy objectives to reduce pesticide use and its resulting risks. ENTAM 2.0 rules allow the evaluation/certification of new machinery or components where European or international Standards are not yet available.
 
Not only tests
The ENTAM 2.0 experience can also speed up the process of developing harmonized standards whereas they are not available yet.
 
The vision of ENTAM 2.0
The evaluation and certification of specific features, such as drift reduction and pesticide savings, are in some cases (e.g. Germany, France) regulated by national law and must be conducted by third parties. Consequently, these investigations have predominantly occurred at a national level within the test facilities of ENTAM member states. ENTAM 2.0 aims at harmonizing these tests for special attributes, enabling mutual recognition of the certificates in other countries, i.e. one evaluation of equipment for the EU and countries with aligned or converging regulatory systems.
 
In conclusion we strongly believe that …
A common approach to testing of agricultural machinery together with a distinctive recognition in many countries is the key answer to provide high quality machinery to the customers on one hand side and to meet the ambitious goals of the European Commission on the other hand side. This will be a benefit for all: manufacturers, farmers and farm contractors.