1st meeting of the Advisory Forum representatives on Plant Health in Parma

European plant health experts discuss cooperation and data collection

Twenty national plant health experts brought together in Parma by EFSA’s Advisory Forum, met plant experts from EFSA and from the European Commission to discuss cooperation between EFSA and national authorities.

At the meeting with Advisory Forum members on 8 and 9 October, the Plant Health Panel outlined current issues and future challenges in pest risk assessment and touched on the guidance document for evaluating PRAs, which is already under preparation. Participants welcomed EFSA’s initiative to collate an inventory of data sources for pest risk assessment which will soon be available to national authorities.

“This is important piece of work which could play a central role in the assessment of plant pests which threaten crop production and biodiversity, and, could also be of particular use to national authorities across the EU,” EFSA’s Director of Risk Assessment Riitta Maijala said.

The experts exchanged views on harmonisation in pest risk assessment methodology and discussed data needs for different types of risk assessments. Participants agreed that harmonisation in methodologies is a central requirement as guidelines were already developed under different European frameworks. The experts also said harmonisation presented various challenges as, for example, there was no common regime for plant health data collection and there were multiple definitions of the same basic terms.

In Europe protective measures against organisms harmful to plants, such as fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, mites and weeds, are based on scientific risk assessment.

Pest risk assessments (PRAs) are prepared by national authorities and submitted to the European Commission for consideration and, in certain cases, the Commission asks EFSA to evaluate PRAs prepared by the national plant health organisations. EFSA’s Plant Health Panel then carries out a scientific assessment of the PRA and provides scientific advice on whether existing protective measures are adequate or not.