What more can we do to protect crops and plants? 

Back in January 2023, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), in partnership with the Forestry Commission and the Scottish and Welsh Governments, published the Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain. This sets out a 5-year vision for plant health. How is the strategy being implemented, and what does it mean for rural communities? Jessica Sellick investigates. ………………………………………………………………………………………………..

In 2021 approximately 18.6 million tonnes of plants and plant products were imported into the UK. Yet in recent years new pests, pathogens and syndromes have emerged posing possible risks to the UK’s crops and plants. COVID-19 has raised the profile of biosecurity, not only in protecting human health but in also protecting animal health and plant health. Preventing plant pests and diseases from entering Great Britain, stopping or slowing their spread if they are found to be present, and ultimately protecting the nation against plant related hazards remains a key Government priority. What role is the Plant Biosecurity Strategy playing in tackling the growing threat posed by pests and diseases that know no borders?       

What is plant biosecurity? Within the Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain, it is defined as ‘a set of precautions that aim to prevent the introduction and spread of harmful organisms. These include non-native pests, such as insects, and disease-causing organisms called pathogens, such as some viruses, bacteria and fungi. These pests and pathogens threaten the health of our plants and trees’. According to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), ‘biosecurity’ means ‘taking measures to prevent the spread or introduction of harmful organisms. In the UK, these organisms are mostly insects and pathogens that cause plant diseases, such as fungi and bacteria’. The United National Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee of Experts on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM) defines a pest as ‘any species, strain or biotype of plant, animal or pathogenic agent injurious to plants or plant products’. Here biosecurity is ‘a strategic and integrated approach to analysing and managing relevant risks to human, animal and plant life and health and associated risks to the environment’. 

In academic circles, commentators have highlighted how biosecurity can be contested and involve different people, organisations and institutions with a range of values. At a farm level, interest in biosecurity measures have focused on both reducing the risk of entry of new pathogens (external biosecurity) and on reducing the internal dissemination of pathogens (internal biosecurity). Here various measures are used to control agricultural pests – from breeding plants that are resistant to pests through to the use of pesticides. 

As the ultimate goal of biosecurity is the exclusion, eradication or management of risks posed by introduced pests and diseases to plant, animal and human health; it is often seen as an interdisciplinary endeavour. Indeed, biosecurity activities cover a geographical continuum – from being offshore and pre-border (surveillance, screening), to taking place within a country’s territory (locate, contain, eradicate). The publication of the UK Biological Security Strategy in June 2023 sets out the Government’s ambition for the UK to be resilient to a spectrum of biological threats by 2030, including ‘high consequence risks’ to plant health.         

Why is a Plant Biosecurity Strategy needed and what does it contain? Back in 2012, the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) convened a Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Taskforce. The group provided advice on threats to tree health and plant biosecurity in the UK and made recommendations about how those threats could be mitigated. In May 2013 the group published its final report. This contained 8 recommendations organised under three themes: 

Theme 1: National context 

  • Develop a prioritised UK Plant Health Risk Register. 
  • Appoint a Chief Plant Health Officer to own the Register and provide leadership for managing those risks. 
  • Develop and implement procedures for preparedness and contingency planning to predict, monitor and control the spread of pests and pathogens. 
  • Review, simplify, and strengthen governance and legislation. 

Theme 2: International context 

  • Improve the use of epidemiological intelligence from EU/other regions. 
  • Strengthen biosecurity to reduce risks at the border and within the UK. 

Theme 3: Capabilities and communication 

  • Develop a modern, user-friendly system to provide quick and intelligent access to information about tree health and plant biosecurity. 
  • Address key skills shortages. 

Alongside consultation with stakeholders, the group’s recommendations informed the first Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain – published by Defra and the Forestry Commission in April 2014. While plant health policy is devolved, the strategy was developed for Great Britain in recognition of the need to ensure biosecurity governance is coordinated and complementary to meet future challenges. The 2014 strategy set out a vision for what the Government at the time wanted to achieve by 2020: ‘Our vision is to protect plants from pests that have been identified as priorities for action, and to build awareness of the risks from pests, knowledge of how to reduce those risks and to introduce a system of management that will incentivise risk reduction’. To achieve this by 2020, the strategy aimed to deliver: 

  • Plant health services making risk-based decisions within a transparent evidence-based framework. 
  • Greater awareness of plant biosecurity among stakeholders and the public; strengthened international regimes for plant movement. 
  • Enhanced technology and science to detect plant pests. 
  • Managing environments to allow established pests to be controlled. 
  • A revised strategy: it was recognised that the 2014 strategy would need to adapt to changes when they occurred. It was the intention to review the strategy in 2016, and to develop an enhanced programme from 2020. 

The UK’s vote to leave the European Union in June 2016 triggered years of negotiations, concluding in a Withdrawal Agreement in October 2019. This saw the UK formally leave the EU on 31 January 2020 and begin a transition period, this was an 11-month period that allowed time for the UK and EU to negotiate their future relationship, culminating in the signing of a Trade and Cooperation Agreement on 24 December 2020. The Agreement underwent legal revisions with the final version published in April 2021 and updated again in June 2021. Against this backdrop, in 2018, the Government published its 25 Year Environment Plan. This contained commitments to protect crops and reduce the environmental impact of pesticides stating that ‘more can be done in the way we breed our plants for traits beyond productivity, making better use of genetics and the resources held in gene banks to ensure their natural resilience to pests and diseases’ (page 40); and how ‘we will continue to take early, pre-emptive action based on evidence of a threat to stop pests and disease arriving here’ (page 64). 

On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, China. COVID-19 was confirmed to be spreading in the UK by the end of January 2020. In March 2020, the Government imposed a lockdown banning all “non-essential” travel and contact with people outside of one’s household. From July 2020 the Government introduced measures to ease these restrictions. In November 2020, the Government published its COVID-19 Winter Plan. This included a three-tier system to run until spring 2021. In December 2020, a new tier 4 ‘stay at home’ alert level was announced in response to a new COVID variant. A further lockdown began on 6 January 2021, with restrictions lifting from 8 March 2021. This worldwide pandemic led to disrupted trade and a recognition of the need to contain invasive virus outbreaks. In 2021, the Joint Committee on the National Security (JCNSS) undertook an inquiry where it noted “a striking absence of strategic leadership of the UK’s biological security as a whole”, and made a recommendation on establishing a new cross-government centre for biosecurity. 

Amid the UK’s departure from the EU and COVID-19, the Government reviewed its approach to plant biosecurity risks. The latest plant biosecurity strategy was published in January 2023 and focuses on the biosecurity of plants (including trees) and plant products (e.g. vegetables, cut flowers). It covers the period 2023-2028 and builds on the work of the first strategy and the Environment Plan. The latest strategy focuses on 4 key areas: 

1. A world class biodiversity regime: 

  • Enhancing risk and horizon scanning approaches. 
  • Updating and adapting the regulatory regime to reflect the latest threats. 
  • Co-ordinate and strengthen outbreak preparedness activities. 
  • A collaborative international approach including developing a UK Plant Health International Action Plan to deliver activities such as capacity building and technical assistance. 

2. A society that values healthy plants: 

  • Raising awareness and encouraging behaviour change to protect plant health. 
  • Education. 
  • Training. 
  • Citizen science projects. 

3. A biosecure plant supply chain: 

  • Intelligence and monitoring. 
  • Assuring supply chains. 
  • Increasing domestic production. 

4. Enhanced technical capability: 

In reviewing the 2013 Strategy, and developing the 2023 Strategy, some overarching gaps were identified around trade networks (and tracing routes of entry); host distribution (knowing susceptible crop varieties); linking data within the UK and internationally (particularly for surveillance and epidemiological modelling); encouraging public adoption of plant biosecurity behaviours; and avoiding errors in reacting to an outbreak. 

In May 2023, Defra produced a plant health research and development plan to guide the commissioning of plant health research over the next 5-years. This is organised around 6 themes: (i) risk assessment and horizon scanning; (ii) inspections, diagnostics and surveillance; (iii) management of pests and diseases; (iv) resilience and adaptation; (v) plant health related behaviours; and (vi) evaluation. 

What does the strategy, and work underway to implement it, mean for rural communities? Agricultural losses due to plant diseases have been estimated at a global level for wheat (21.5% (10.1–28.1%)), rice (30.0% (24.6–40.9%)), maize (22.5% (19.5–41.1%)), potato (17.2% (8.1–21.0%)) and soybean (21.4% (11.0–32.4%)). An academic study has highlighted how there are 200-400 species yet to be discovered in natural ecosystems and forests globally that may have the potential to expose host plants to a pathogen they have not previously encountered. Some researchers have also argued that agricultural systems based on intensive crop cultures, with limited crop varieties and/or the wide use of chemical products on crops can drive the spread of pests and diseases.   

Strategically, the UK Plant Health Risk Register (UKPHRR) is the pest ranking tool used in Great Britain. It includes pests with UK pest risk analyses (PRAs), pests that are regulated, pests on the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) global database, pests that are intercepted on imports or that have caused outbreaks or may be a threat to the UK. The UK expert advisory Plant Health Risk Group (PHRG) maintains the UKPHRR, provides advice on new and emerging plant health threats, and looks at potential threats identified by Defra’s plant health risk and horizon scanning team. However, only a few pests are actively monitored and a PRA may be required before any action is taken. 

For agricultural crops; pest surveillance, forecasting disease, breeding resistant cultivars, use of pesticides and other practices are vital to limit the contact of crops with pathogens. Operationally, in 2023 the Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI), part of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) scheme, introduced a new standard on integrated pest management. This includes a payment of £989 per year to complete an IPM assessment and produce an IPM plan and intended to encourage farmers to adopt a range of crop protection and risk reduction strategies.

How can we better join up biosecurity measures at the field level with plant health surveillance and detection frameworks at national and global levels – and will ELMs and risk registers help us? 

Rural residents have an important role to play in biosecurity. This ranges from helping to monitor pests and report issues, as well as taking action to control or stop their spread between sites. Back in May 2022 Defra, in partnership with 29 organisations, signed an Accord to improve public engagement in plant health and biodiversity. This included a joint campaign to encourage to not bring home plants, trees, fruits and seeds from overseas; and to ensure people know how to report sightings of pests and diseases. More widely, it has been suggested that volunteers could be deployed in environmental modelling, and the importance of members of the public in ‘passive surveillance’ highlighted (e.g. TreeAlert portal).  

What more can be done to collate insights from people living, working or visiting the countryside – and how can these link to the UKPHRR and PRAs?  

Where next? Back in 2006, the Government Office for Science published a Foresight report on infectious diseases. The foreword highlighted how ‘diseases in plants and animals act as barriers to economic development and also threaten ecosystems’ (page 5). It also indicated how plants would be at greater risk of vector-borne disease. More recently, in June 2023, the Government published the UK Biological Security Strategy. This cites how changing trade and consumer patterns, an increase in imports and climate change all increase the risk of an introduced plant pest outbreak occurring in the UK in the next 5-years, and that this risk will continue to increase over the next decade. The Plant Biosecurity Strategy contains commitments to update on progress after 3-years and to produce an evaluation at the end of the strategy period. While there will always be uncertainty about the future threats of infectious diseases, are we doing enough to prepare for those that will emerge – and are we taking rural communities into account? Watch this space.          …………………………………………………………………………………………………

Jessica is a project manager at Rose Regeneration and a senior research fellow at The National Centre for Rural Health and Care (NCRHC). She is currently evaluating hospital discharge and hospital avoidance schemes, and a service that supports older people to maintain their independence. Jessica also sits on the board of a charity supporting  rural communities across Cambridgeshire. 

She can be contacted by email jessica.sellick@roseregeneration.co.uk. 

Website: http://roseregeneration.co.uk/https://www.ncrhc.org/ 

Blog: http://ruralwords.co.uk/ 

Twitter: @RoseRegen