Plant Property Identifier Pilot Project (PPIPP) 2021 commences

In 2018 the National Biosecurity Committee (NBC) agreed to progress towards a national Property Identification Code (PIC) for plant industries to bring the sector into alignment with the property identification system already applying to animal producers in all Australian states and territories. 

The aim of a PIC for plant industries is to ensure businesses are identifiable across regions for the purposes of responding to national and regional emergencies including bush fires, floods, biosecurity incursions, storms, cyclones, etc., allowing for targeted responses by government and stakeholders.

Since the initial discussion in 2019 the plant industries, including state Nursery & Garden Industry (NGI) associations and Greenlife Industry Australia (GIA), have been included in, and contributed to, various discussions, submissions and surveys addressing the topic and informing government of the critical elements required and likely impacts of such a PIC for plant industries, particularly production nurseries.  The nursery industry, state and national bodies, have agreed with the NBC and support the need to move towards a PIC system noting this is an ‘in principle’ support and open to withdrawal if the plant PIC process selected is significantly flawed or biased against nursery production. 

The National Property Identification Code Working Group, operating under the NBC, has been investigating various options that might fit with a plant PIC system including the Global Location Number (GLN) operated by GS1.  GIA have been invited to sit on the national PIC pilot group and have been asked to seek nursery sector businesses interested in testing the pilot PIC system under the GLN and National Location Registry (NLR) within the project.

Due to the variability of cropping systems across nursery production, the large number of crops (>30,000 species and cultivars), and the diverse supply chains nursery production requires a number of different businesses to test the PIC system under this pilot.  GIA invited five production nurseries to participate in the Plant Property Identifier Pilot Project  (PPIPP) , as mentioned above, across three states that represent seedlings, propagation, tree and shrub, landscape tree stock, house plants, greenlife market, fruit trees, potted and perennial colour.  Furthermore, a number of the businesses selected to participate in the pilot operate across two or more states which adds to the robust testing of the GLN and NLR for the sector.

It is expected that the total duration of the pilot project will be around 36 weeks from start to end, however the volunteer businesses will not be expected to be involved through this entire period. There will be a range of workshops held at the start of the project prior to the development of the test registry (NLR). Once the test NLR is complete, the volunteer businesses will be asked to enter data into the test NLR that will assist the development of the final recommendations to NBC.