Development of International Risk-Based Phytosanitary Performance Standards. M. R. Powell, US Department of Agriculture
Phytosanitary risk analyses required under the World Trade Organization Sanitary and Phytosanitary Agreement have focused primarily on identification of potential plant pests and assessing their likelihood of introduction in the absence of effective phytosanitary measures. Less attention has been paid to analyzing the efficacy of phytosanitary risk reduction measures, although this is central to determining whether specific measures are likely to achieve a country’s chosen level of phytosanitary protection and the equivalence of alternative measures. Ideally, a phytosanitary performance standard would be defined as a probabilistic tolerance. For treatments such as solid wood pasteurization, this could be operationalized by stating with a specific degree of confidence that the treatment failure rate for a sentinel pest should be less than a defined level (e.g., X% confidence that the wood heat treatment failure rate for pest Y does not exceed Z%). This paper illustrates one approach to developing such a standard based on available data. The example presented is the effect of heat treatment on the survival of solid wood-inhabiting pests. Major domestic and international standards are currently under development to reduce the risk of introducing exotic forest pests via solid wood packing material (e.g., pallets, crates, spools) used in the shipment of most commercial products around the world.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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