High Value Crops - Stakeholder Update, July 2006

1 July 2006

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Prioritisation of Post-entry Quarantine Testing Manuals for 2006-2007

MAF Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) is currently developing post-entry quarantine testing manuals for Actinidia and Vaccinium seed and nursery stock. The Actinidia manual will be distributed for consultation at the end of July, consultation on the Vaccinium manual is anticipated in August.

In consultation with stakeholders, BNZ has prioritised the development of testing manuals for the present financial year (July 2006 – June 2007) in accordance with the following criteria:

a) Potential value to New Zealand

b) Historical and projected demand for importation

c) Current and projected availability of resources required to enable import (e.g. PEQ space)

d) Complexity of testing manual

e) Alternatives to Level 3 PEQ (e.g. high-health schemes overseas)

f) Any other relevant factors (e.g. private provision of PEQ)

The priorities for 2006/07 are:

High priority

1. Solanum (potato)

2. Malus (apple)

3. Fragaria (strawberry)

4. Ribes (currants)

5. Pyrus (pear)

Medium priority

6. Ipomea (sweet potato)

7. Humulus (hop)

8. Juglans (walnut)

9. Citrus (lemon, mandarin, orange)

10. Rubus (berries)

Low priority

11. Castanea (sweet chestnut)

12. Prunus (cherry, peach, plum)

13. Olea (olive)

14. Quercus (oak)

15. Corylus (hazel nut)

It is anticipated that all the ‘high-priority’ testing manuals will be completed during the present financial year. It is likely that some of the ‘medium- priority’ manuals will also be started during this period. Work on the ‘low priority’ manuals is not anticipated to commence this year unless development of the manuals is significantly faster than currently estimated.

Once each set of priorities (‘high’, ‘medium’, ‘low’) is complete, BNZ will review any new requests to develop manuals received during the period to consider whether any are of higher priority. During May-June 2007, BNZ will seek input from stakeholders regarding priorities for the development of manuals for the next financial year (July 2007 – June 2008).

Process for development of testing manuals

BNZ will contact representative stakeholders to advise when work on each testing manual has commenced. At this time we will also provide a schedule detailing milestones in the development of the manual, in particular periods during which stakeholders will be invited to input into the manual. There will be a formal period of consultation with representative stakeholders to ensure that the manual fits the requirements of importers and service providers.

Future updates

We plan to e-mail stakeholder updates every two-three months to keep you informed of our progress and other relevant material. These updates will also be available on our website: http://www.biosecurity.govt.nz/imports/plants/standards/high-value-crops.

If you do not wish to receive these updates, please reply to this e-mail asking to be removed from the mailing list.

If you know of others who might be interested in these updates, please let us know and we will add them to the mailing list. The PEQ (High-Value Crops) team can be contacted at: peqtesting@maf.govt.nz