New rules to control the risk of pests and disease entering the UK have been announced by Defra.

The Plant Health Division has now published the products and origins for which a reduced level of plant health inspections will apply from January 1, 2005.

Under the revised EU regulations, all consignments of plant health controlled material imported from outside the EU must be inspected.

However, there is provision within the rules for those inspections to be carried at a reduced frequency, for example on a random basis, rather than checking each consignment, if there is evidence of little or no plant health risk.

The criteria for setting a reduced frequency of inspection are; the average number of consignments of the product from a specific country imported into the EU is above 200 a year; the minimum number of consignments inspected over the previous three years is at least 600; and less than one per cent of the consignments each year were found to be infected.

UK authorities have worked closely with Dutch counterparts to prepare dossiers of relevant data for product/origin combinations where there have been sufficient clear inspections over the last three years.

The EU Commission has agreed from January1, 2005, reduced levels of inspection can be carried out on 32 trades, including citrus from Israel and Turkey, among others, to pears from Chile, China, Argentina and South Africa.

The list means that around 11,000 consignments per year will be eligble for reduced levels of physical inspection out of a total of 36,000.

All consignments not covered by the table will be subject to inspection, however Defra’s Plant Health Division will continue to collect data to widen the list.

For more information on the full list of products and places of origin, contact the Fresh Produce Consortium on 01733 237117.

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