b'KeepingUpWithPhytosanitary Concerns Ric Dunkle shares the good, the bad and the ugly in the realm of phytosanitary concerns. Alex Martin amartin@issuesink.comIF THERES ONEthing thats difficult to keep up with, itslong way to go. Thats where the systems approach comes in. whats happening in terms of the phytosanitary realm. The international standard acknowledges that many current With a number of ongoing projects that take many years topractices used by seed companies in seed production and pro-implement, its more important than ever to ensure youre upcessing inferentially reduce phytosanitary risk, he says.to speed about phytosanitary requirements and whats on theBecause of this, organizations such as ASTA and ISF are horizon.asking questions to help apply this systems approach to the Ric Dunkle, senior director of seed health and trade for theseed industry. The first question: Is there a way for countries to American Seed Trade Association (ASTA), says he recentlyrecognize the procedures seed companies take to reduce phy-gave a presentation called Phytosanitary: The Good, the Badtosanitary risks? And the second: How can we use the systems and the Ugly.approach for this purpose?The United States has taken the lead with REFRESH, a The Good: Systems Approach USDA-APHIS systems approach initiative to evaluate current One of the programs that has landed itself under the good cat- practices seed companies use and how to leverage those, egory is the continued work in developing a systems approach.Dunkle says. Its easy to add onto what a company is already Theres been a lot of activity around the world as differentdoing, but its more difficult to force new procedures. If you look countries use ISPM 38, Dunkle says. One of the fundamentaldown to the company and analyze their business practices and issues thats in that new standard is how seed can be a pathwaymonitor those through auditing, youll be much more effective at for moving pests and diseases. minimizing phytosanitary risks.In collaboration with the International Seed Federation (ISF),This is an exciting step for the United States, Dunkle says, as ASTA has been working to identify the number of pathways andthe systems approach will allow us to partner and work together pathogens that can be associated with seed.with like-minded countries.Theres a large number of countries regulating pathogens asSome companies might say this is too much work and seedborne, and they arent actually proven to be caused fromwere better off being regulated under the current system of the seed, Dunkle says. Weve been looking into whether orconsignment-by-consignment phytosanitary certification, but not seed can be a pathway for some of these pests and dis- some companies might not need a lot of extra work to get to this eases, and then we relay that information to the governments.systems approach accreditation, he says. If your company is Sometimes the seed species isnt a host, and sometimes theproducing seed in different countries all under the same systems seed isnt a pathway. If it isnt associated with the seed, thenapproach, it should be possible to get all of its locations under there isnt a need to do seed testing for that pathogen or pest. one accreditation; however, we still have a long way to go at the While there has been some success, Dunkle says theres still aglobal level. 42/ SEEDWORLD.COMDECEMBER 2019'