NY20001 National Biosecurity and Sustainable Plant Production Program: 2021 Project Report

By John McDonald, National Biosecurity Manager, Greenlife Industry Australia

The NY20001 National Biosecurity and Sustainable Plant Production Program is focused on nursery industry plant biosecurity preparedness, response and recovery and the sustainable viability of nursery production across Australia. Managed by Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA), under funding from Hort Innovation using the nursery research and development levy and funds from the Australian Government, this program achieved the bulk of its expected and planned project outcomes in 2021. This achievement comes despite the various COVID-19 lockdowns in Victoria and New South Wales, and lockouts in Queensland, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia, which impacted on the project team’s ability to deliver all extension and engagement activities over the year.

Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed (EPPRD)

The NY20001 National Biosecurity and Sustainable Plant Production Program (“the project”) represents the nursery industry across the plant biosecurity continuum and participates in all areas of responsibility under the Emergency Plant Pest Response Deed (EPPRD) including Consultative Committee on Emergency Plant Pests (CCEPP), National Management Group (NMG) and Plant Health Australia (PHA)/EPPRD member meetings, PHA Issues Resolution Groups and member meetings. The project maintains a high level of activity in the national biosecurity system including technical justification addressing market access and trade negotiations/consultations, participation in state/national resource and policy reviews and prosecuting the Plant Industries Biosecurity Committee (PIBC) agenda.

Indeed, a significant achievement in 2021 has been gaining agreement from 39 plant industry groups to form the PIBC and further gaining agreement from the national Plant Health Committee to recognise the PIBC and work to reform our domestic plant biosecurity system.

The project undertook more than 121 national plant biosecurity meetings, forums and engagements with entities including national plant biosecurity committees, state biosecurity departments, Plant Health Australia, Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Water & Environment, universities and research organisations addressing everything from national plant pest incursions, plant protection, biosecurity and pesticide regulation through to biocontrol of declared weeds, legislative reforms, strategies and policy development and market access for businesses.

Minor Use Permits (MUP)

The project has had a long and engaging process throughout 2021 with the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) working to redefine and reorganise the nursery industry Minor Use Permits (MUP) program due to policy changes by the APVMA on multi-active MUPs. Working with NY20001’s agrichemical consultant, AgAware Consulting, GIA has been able to secure the future MUP program, maintain the use of multi-active MUPs (restricted to 10 active ingredients) and provide a cost efficient MUP program going forward. As reported earlier, the central components of the MUP program will be grouping insects and diseases in ‘Family Groups’ e.g., Lepidoptera and ranking active ingredients based on the level of risk of removal from registration (high, moderate, low) along with providing longer MUP renewal intervals based on the lower active ingredient risk.

Sustainable Plant Production

The sustainable plant production component of the project centres around the delivery of technical information and guidance to production nurseries, greenlife markets and growing media manufacturers across the critical areas of best management practice (BMP), environmental stewardship, plant protection and biosecurity. These elements are well resourced through the programs under the Australian Plant Production Standard (APPS) including NIASA BMP, EcoHort and BioSecure HACCP manuals, web-based management system, technical information library and PPO technical implementation and adoption support.

The project is further supporting growers in their best management practice adoption with Mini Technical Skills Courses, developed by the project and delivered by the Plant Protection Officer (PPOs) to growers implementing best management practice, environmental management, and plant protection/biosecurity procedures. Mini Technical Skills Courses are short sharp 30-to-60-minute skills specific courses delivered on-site to growers, staff and consultants across a range of criteria including pH/EC testing, measuring AFP/WHC of growing media, pesticide resistance management, measuring residual chlorine, creating a pest management plan, site surveillance, dispatch inspections and more. In 2021, PPOs delivered courses across 113 businesses to 569 staff and trained 168 staff in using the web-based management system for 109 businesses implementing, or moving to implementing, best management practice.

The project also worked on developing digital recording templates for all the APPS programs to provide a more efficient system for capturing technical production data using phones and tablets in the field, as well as assigning tasks to staff and monitoring completion. The digital information is databased for each grower, in their own portal, allowing reports to be generated for individual growing areas or across the cropping system. Crop monitoring is now digitally captured and databased giving growers enhanced decision making power and more efficient plant protection processes. Of significance is the power of the platform to collate and report on data collected by businesses allowing growers and staff to view graphically trending data and make forward focused decisions to reduce risks or take advantage in the market place.

The Australian Plant Production Standard (APPS) Technical Library website is expanding in content with industry use increasing including more than 4,300 individual main page access and 300 completed eLearning courses in 2021. The site also received a recent software upgrade along with the enhanced pesticide minor use permit (MUP) search function that improves the ability to find the MUP by pest, active ingredient, permit number or product trade name.

All other project achievement criteria and outputs have been met or exceeded including the uptake of the Pest ID Tool reaching the 5-year target (250 new registered uses) in our first year, with more than 590 new users in 2021, adding to the more than 2000 active users.

Adept Plant Protection Officers adapt to change

The project is supported by PPOs based in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia (WA) whereby South Australia (SA), Tasmania and Northern Territory (NT) are serviced by one of these four state-based officers. COVID-19, over the past two years, has prevented much of the usual cross-border engagement, except for the WA/NT link, as well as providing significant constraints in Victoria. However, the Plant Protection Officers (PPOs) applied a range of communication tools and strategies to stay engaged with growers over this time. The PPOs in the locked down states improvised and engaged their client base in 2021 with more than 450 video, telephone and email engagements, over and above the 795 on-site grower contacts across the states and territories, to compensate and maintain project momentum.

Contact the team

To access information on NY20001 National Biosecurity and Sustainable Plant Production Program or to organize a visit from one of the PPOs please contact National Biosecurity Manager John McDonald on john.mcdonald@greenlifeindustry.com.au or the relevant PPO as follows:

Queensland/Northern NSW: Barry Naylor, barry.naylor@greenlifeindustry.com.au
New South Wales/Northern Victoria: Emma De Landre, emma.delandre@greenlifeindustry.com.au
Victoria/South Australia: Kimberley Thomas, kimberley.thomas@greenlifeindustry.com.au
Western Australia/Northern Territory: Steve Blyth, steve.blyth@greenlifeindustry.com.au
Tasmania: John McDonald, john.mcdonald@greenlifeindustry.com.au