Emerging approaches to phytosanitary risk

management decision challenges:

PRATIQUE – a European Project

Jon Knight

22nd Technical Consultation among Regional Plant Protection

Organisations

PI: Richard Baker (FERA, UK)

Imperial College London Team:

John Mumford, Megan Quinlan, John Holt, Adrian Leach,
 What is a Pratique?
Enhancements of Pest Risk Analysis Techniques
 Organised around the existing PRA scheme developed by EPPO
 European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organisation (EPPO, 1997); working with revision from 2007
 Three year project (March 2008 - 2011)
 €4.13 million (510 person months)
 Funded by the European Union under FP 7 “Building the European research area of knowledge for
growth”
 15 Partners
 11 partners (NPPOs and universities) from 9 European countries, plus subcontracts to Russian and
Chinese institutions
 Partners from Australia and New Zealand, plus active observers from Canada and the United States of
America.
 Two international organisations as partners (EPPO and CABI Switzerland Centre)
EU 7th Framework Call Text (ii)
Key work will focus on risk assessment issues and will include:

1. identifying and integrating key national and international

datasets
2. exploring new techniques and refining existing tools
 - especially validation of techniques that assess economic,
environmental or social impacts/costs
3. developing system approaches for pest risk management to
analyse and enhance the effectiveness of Plant Health
policy
4. developing novel and sustainable pest management
strategies with integrated technical support for policy
development in the case of emergency situations/pest
outbreaks, especially those pests that are difficult to control.
PRATIQUE partners
N Partner Name Short Name Country
1 Central Science Laboratory CSL UK
2 Plant Protection Institute PPI Bulgaria
3 Institute of Botany, Academy of Sciences of the Czech IBOT Czech Republic
Republic
4 European and Mediterranean Plant Protection EPPO France
Organization
5 Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique INRA France
6 Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche CIRAD France
Agronomique pour le Développement
7 Julius Kühn-Institut JKI Germany
8 University of Padova, Environmental Agronomy UPAD Italy
9 Agricultural Economics Research Institute LEI Netherlands
10 Wageningen University WU Netherlands
11 University of Fribourg UNIFR Switzerland
12 CAB International CABI UK
13 Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine Imperial UK

14 Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant CRCNPB Australia

Biosecurity
15 Lincoln University, National Centre for Advanced Bio- Bio-Protection New Zealand
Protection Technologies
PRATIQUE: Principal project objectives & Work
Packages

 To assemble the datasets required to construct

PRAs valid for the whole of the EU (WP1)
 To conduct multi-disciplinary research to
enhance the techniques used in PRA for:
 the assessment of economic, environmental and
social impacts (WP2)
 standardising and summarising risk (WP3)
 pathway analysis and systems approaches (WP4)
 guiding actions during pest outbreaks (WP5)
 To ensure that the PRA scheme is fit for
purpose and user-friendly (WP6)
PRATIQUE Work Packages

Work Work package title Lead

package
1 Identifying and integrating key national and CABI
international datasets
2 Enhancing techniques for economic, LEI, Netherlands
environmental and social impacts
3 Enhancing techniques for standardising and JKI, Germany
summarising pest risk assessments
4 Enhancing techniques for pathway analysis and Imperial College
systems approaches
5 Developing a decision support system for the University Padua
eradication and containment of pest outbreaks

6 Project validation and dissemination with the EPPO

development of a web-based PRA scheme
7 Project coordination and management CSL
PRATIQUE: Structure
WP1: Identifying and Integrating Datasets

WP2: WP4: WP5:

Assessing Pathway Action at
Impacts Analysis & Outbreaks
Systems
Approaches

WP3:
Standardising and
Summarising Risk
Assessments

Pest risk Pest risk

assessment management

WP6: Web-based PRA scheme, Dissemination & Validation

PRATIQUE: Work Packages & Stages in the PRA Scheme
Stages in the PRA
PRATIQUE Work Package Coverage
Scheme

Detailed pest risk

assessment
needed?

Entry
WP4

Establishment

WP3
Spread
WP1 WP6

Impacts
WP2

Pest/pathway risk
assessment
conclusions

Analysis of risk
management WP4 WP5
options

Risk
Communication
 WP 2 – Enhancing techniques for economic,
environmental and social impacts

 To determine the extent to which the analysis of

species traits can be used to identify those species
that can cause significant impacts in cultivated and
uncultivated habitats
 To develop a novel scoring system to assess impacts
and determine thresholds for phytosanitary action
 To enhance existing techniques and develop new
tools for assessing economic, environmental and
social impacts
 To develop a generic integrated model to assess pest
spread and impacts
WP 3 – Enhancing techniques for standardising
and summarising pest risk assessments

 To enhance the consistency and standardisation of

pest risk assessments by identifying and applying
appropriate criteria
 To develop and test new techniques for quantifying
uncertainty in pest risk assessments
 To enhance techniques for mapping endangered
areas taking current and future climate, land use and
economic impacts into account
 To develop and test new techniques for summarising
and communicating overall risk in pest risk
assessment
 WP 4 – Enhancing techniques for pathway
analysis and systems approaches

 Review of current approaches to pathway analysis in

PRA
 Review of the current application of systems
approaches in PRA
 Development of a pathway risk analysis module for
the PRA scheme with a protocol for the application of
neural networks and methods for enhancing
consistency
 Development of a systems approach module for the
PRA scheme
 WP 5 – Developing a decision support system for
the eradication and containment of pest outbreaks

 To carry out a meta-analysis of the successes and

failures of pest eradication and containment
programmes worldwide
 To provide guidance for analysing the cost-
effectiveness of pest eradication and containment
measures
 To develop a decision support scheme to support
actions to be taken following pest outbreaks
 To provide recommendations for the application of
pest surveillance techniques in detecting pest
incursions and managing outbreaks
WP 6 – Project validation and dissemination with
the development of a web-based PRA scheme

 To validate the outputs from work packages 1 to 5

using independent experts and a wide range of pests
and pathways
 To create a web-enabled EPPO PRA scheme
incorporating outputs from work packages 1 to 5
 To consolidate and disseminate project outputs by
providing a manual and examples of best practice
with the web-enabled PRA scheme
Web-based PRA scheme
As a first step towards applying Systems Approach, section
3 questions were re-ordered as a time line, related to
Critical Control Points (CCP)
 Significant probability of Entry

Significant probability of establishment

Is the pest under official control?

Existing management practices on
Is produce from pest free areas?
pathway (1.7) or existing management
Is place of production low prevalence?
practices in Importing country prevents
Are there other targeted activities that may
entry or establishment of organism (1.21)
be equivalent?

Are existing measures sufficient and

acceptable to the importer?
Agreement on data requirements
Monitoring & surveillance
(3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28)

No

Yes

Commodity pathway 1. Conveyances pathway 1. Dunnage etc pathway 1.

Plants for planting pathway Natural Spread pathway 1.

for potential weeds 1.

Checklist of risk management policy

 Commodity pathway (1, 2, 3 etc) Identify any reasons for revision

On Farm What is the pest status at origin of the pathway?

(present, absent, confined under official control, low prevalence) Low uncertainty None
(high confidence) found

Present under official control, pest free

areas or place of production or
low prevalence Absent

List available choices (3.30)

3.20 Preventable by treatment of crop
Agreement on data requirements
Monitoring & surveillance High uncertainty
(3.25 3.26 3.27 3.28) (Low confidence)
3.24 Preventable by production certification scheme
(Pest free planting material or specified phytosanitary status)

Pest found Confirmatory surveys in exporting country

3.21 Preventable by cultivars/Resistant cultivars

Seasonal or periodic inspection of growing area

Elimination of alternative hosts and/or creation of buffer zones

3.22 Preventable by growing conditions

Glasshouses, sterilized soil , cultivation practices etc. Auditing (system review)
Traceability established
3.13, 3.14 Detectable by visual inspection or tests
3.23 Preventable by choice of harvesting times &
(maturity level, season, growth stage etc.) 3.43 Issue of phytosanitary certificate
Safeguarding to prevent subsequent infestation
(clean storage and conveyances)
Maintenance of consignment integrity
Post harvest 3.18 Preventable by packing & handling methods
(preclearance) Preventable by removal of non-required parts (3.17)
Chlorine wash, controlled atmosphere, shrink wrap, etc

3.16 Controlled by treatments (chemical etc)

Post entry 3.15 Post entry quarantine

(Detention at a designated place pending measures) 3.13, 3.14 Detectable by visual inspection or tests
3.29 Targeted surveillance measures in importing countries
3.19 Conditional import , Limited distribution, Limited period of Trapping, surveys, public reporting systems etc.
entry, Designated use e.g. processing, Advance notification

Destruction or re-export
Go to risk
3.7 Post-entry control possible, Effective containment/eradication managers
post entry (also 3.29) checklist
 Developing trade opportunities:
an integrated systems approach
for pest risk management

STDF Proposal Preparation Grant

Focus on S E Asia sub-region
Beyond Compliance
Problems (Benefits):
 Failure of single/rigid measures can be disruptive to trade (less risk in
multiple measure/adaptive systems, more flexibility from Systems Approach
(SA), reduced interceptions in export markets); limitations of current
measures (improved performance, availability, cost, quality impacts,
practicality)
 Rigid measures may be applied without regard to risk from real pest
challenge, control options and without benefit of local knowledge and
decision making skills (broader stakeholder involvement, cost and
responsibility sharing, more ownership of risk management, more
stakeholder control over process)
 Asymmetric relations in trade: lack of confidence in negotiations especially
for the more complex SA examples (SA defined and understood, SA
implemented or planned, market access started/in discussion, better
opportunities for less active exporter countries in the Region by Regional
SA); reactive relations with trading partners (more control over system in
negotiation)
Rationale
 Pest risk management imposed by importing
country NPPOs will be more transparent,
consistent and justified as proportional to the
estimated risk.
 Measures combined in the new approach will be
more widely applied without unnecessary
redundancy.
 National goals to reduce use of chemical-based
end point treatments will be advanced.
 Exporting countries with fewer resources will
have the capacity to more confidently negotiate
equivalence agreements to use measures better
suited to their own conditions.
Anticipated Outputs
1. A description of pest risk management evaluation and
design in the region

2. Case studies of priority trade opportunities using Systems

Approach for pest risk management. (7 cases identified)

3. Demonstration and evaluation of quantification and

analytical tools (specifically control points and Bayesian
Nets) to support use of Systems Approach

4. Establishment of a competency base with the methodology

in the SE Asian subregion

5. A plan for a harmonised framework (possibly leading to an

RSPM)
Beyond Compliance - activities

Output: Demonstration and evaluation of

quantification and analytical tools
(Control Points and BBN)
1. Development of the tool
2. Demonstration of the tool
3. Validation of the tool
…for each of the case studies.
 Thank you

 Any questions?

 www.pratiqueproject.eu
Beyond Compliance – case studies
1. Import of fresh produce (not rubber plants) as a
pathway of SALB from countries not free of
SALB to the region [Malaysia leads, e.g. Brazil]
2. Import of oil palm tissue culture, seedlings from
outside subregion [Thailand leads, from CR]
3. Vietnam Dragon fruit to S Korea and Taiwan
4. Philippines mangosteen and avocado to USA
5. Indonesia mangosteen to Australia
6. Malaysia jackfruit to China and Australia
7. Thailand orchid cut flowers to Europe