Agricultural biosecurity

Plant diseases threaten both food security and the botanical diversity of natural ecosystems. Substantial research effort is focused on pathogen detection and control, with detailed risk management available for many plant diseases. Risk can be assessed using analytical techniques that account for disease pressure both spatially and temporally. We suggest that such technical assessments of disease risk may not provide an adequate guide to the strategies undertaken by growers and government to manage plant disease. Instead, risk-management strategies need to account more fully for intuitive and normative responses that act to balance conflicting interests between stakeholder organizations concerned with plant diseases within the managed and natural environments. Modes of effective engagement between policy makers and stakeholders are explored in the paper, together with an assessment of such engagement in two case studies of contemporary non-indigenous diseases in one food and in one non-food sector. Finally, a model is proposed for greater integration of stakeholders in policy decisions.

Section: Hindsight and The Future Of Regulatory Engagementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating natural and social science perspectives on plant disease risk, management and policy formulation

Mills

Dehnen‐Schmutz

Ilbery

et al. 2011

“…One system may be said to be more sustainable relative to another if its negative externalities are lower. Monetary criteria do, though, only capture some of the values of agricultural systems and the resources upon which they impinge (Carson 2000), and so choices may depend on wider questions about the sustainability of farm practices (on farm, in field) and the sustainability of whole landscapes (interactions between agricultural and wild habitats; Green et al 2005;Shennan 2008;Waage & Mumford 2008;Wade et al 2008).…”

Section: Side Effects and Externalitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Agricultural sustainability: concepts, principles and evidence

Pretty

2007

1,372

746

Concerns about sustainability in agricultural systems centre on the need to develop technologies and practices that do not have adverse effects on environmental goods and services, are accessible to and effective for farmers, and lead to improvements in food productivity. Despite great progress in agricultural productivity in the past half-century, with crop and livestock productivity strongly driven by increased use of fertilizers, irrigation water, agricultural machinery, pesticides and land, it would be over-optimistic to assume that these relationships will remain linear in the future. New approaches are needed that will integrate biological and ecological processes into food production, minimize the use of those non-renewable inputs that cause harm to the environment or to the health of farmers and consumers, make productive use of the knowledge and skills of farmers, so substituting human capital for costly external inputs, and make productive use of people's collective capacities to work together to solve common agricultural and natural resource problems, such as for pest, watershed, irrigation, forest and credit management. These principles help to build important capital assets for agricultural systems: natural; social; human; physical; and financial capital. Improving natural capital is a central aim, and dividends can come from making the best use of the genotypes of crops and animals and the ecological conditions under which they are grown or raised. Agricultural sustainability suggests a focus on both genotype improvements through the full range of modern biological approaches and improved understanding of the benefits of ecological and agronomic management, manipulation and redesign. The ecological management of agroecosystems that addresses energy flows, nutrient cycling, population-regulating mechanisms and system resilience can lead to the redesign of agriculture at a landscape scale. Sustainable agriculture outcomes can be positive for food productivity, reduced pesticide use and carbon balances. Significant challenges, however, remain to develop national and international policies to support the wider emergence of more sustainable forms of agricultural production across both industrialized and developing countries.

“…The result is that trees and woodland in the UK are arguably under greater threat today from invasive pathogens than ever before [3,4]. The sudden oak death pathogen, P. ramorum (Pr), is thought to have first arrived in the UK as a single introduction, probably on infected nursery stock originating from within the EU [22].…”

Section: The Continuing Contemporary Relevance Of Dutch Elm Diseasementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overwhelmingly, the main risk drivers are the expanding trade in plants and plant products, together with growing transportation [1][2][3][4]. Biologically complex and often emerging as disease threats because of an ability to coevolve with new hosts and to rapidly exploit the environments with which they come into contact, tree disease pathogens pose both a scientific and management challenge.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning from history, predicting the future: the UK Dutch elm disease outbreak in relation to contemporary tree disease threats

Potter

Harwood

Knight

et al. 2011

Expanding international trade and increased transportation are heavily implicated in the growing threat posed by invasive pathogens to biodiversity and landscapes. With trees and woodland in the UK now facing threats from a number of disease systems, this paper looks to historical experience with the Dutch elm disease (DED) epidemic of the 1970s to see what can be learned about an outbreak and attempts to prevent, manage and control it. The paper draws on an interdisciplinary investigation into the history, biology and policy of the epidemic. It presents a reconstruction based on a spatial modelling exercise underpinned by archival research and interviews with individuals involved in the attempted management of the epidemic at the time. The paper explores what, if anything, might have been done to contain the outbreak and discusses the wider lessons for plant protection. Reading across to present-day biosecurity concerns, the paper looks at the current outbreak of ramorum blight in the UK and presents an analysis of the unfolding epidemiology and policy of this more recent, and potentially very serious, disease outbreak. The paper concludes by reflecting on the continuing contemporary relevance of the DED experience at an important juncture in the evolution of plant protection policy.