Scotland's Plant Health Centre - Key principles to minimise plant health risks

EMBED PLANT HEALTH IN POLICIES AND PRACTICES Developing consistent practices, incentives, guidance and regulation can minimise the risk of outbreaks and their consequences. Encouraging best practice at all stages from planning, through procurement to planting will reduce plant health risks. • Embed plant health principles into wider policy and resource management practices and ensure consistency of approach (e.g. across sectors and nations, and when redesigning grant aid) • Align grant schemes to incentivise good plant health practices (e.g. adopt timelines which support local production of plants for landscaping projects) • Explicitly include plant health and biosecurity as value criteria in the procurement process for major purchases of plant material (e.g. by recognising the costs of disease outbreaks) • Support accreditation mechanisms promoting plant health • Ensure monitoring and surveillance are appropriately resourced and targeted Positive activities which already exemplify this principle • Strategy for Xylella : Governments acted quickly to put stringent rules in place but may be limited by focussing on a few key species. • Bemesia tabaci policy was effective: could provide a model? • FSC certification of sustainably sourced timber and paper products Further activities which could be taken to underpin this principle • Embed plant health more strongly in UKFS and UKWAS in next revisions – as shapes schemes receiving grant aid • Improve regulation (incl. across UK) for development of whole range of new bio- pesticides, looking at benefits as well as risks • Support ICM/IPM principles to minimise dependencies on chemicals. • Investigate the possibility of the polluter pays from a plant health perspective. Who pays for introducing new pests and pathogens?