44^th Meeting of the Panel on CPM Affairs
10^th Joint EPPO/NAPPO meeting

Savannah, US, 2010-01-18/21

The 10^th joint EPPO/NAPPO meeting took place in Savannah (Georgia, USA) at the kind invitation of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Department of Agriculture of the State Georgia. The 44th meeting of the Panel on CPM Affairs was also held in Savannah during the same week.

The Panel on CPM Affairs discussed in detail the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs) which will be presented for adoption during the 5th Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-5), which will meet on 2010-03-22/26 in Rome. The Panel agreed on some recommendations (which are sent to NPPOs) to amend these ISPMs but was quite satisfied with these ISPMs and did not anticipate major difficulties with the adoption of these standards for the EPPO region.

The Panel briefly discussed other issues which will be on the agenda of the CPM-5, in particular development of technical manuals by FAO, requirements for the new business plan (2012-2017) for IPPC and priorities in the standard setting programme. 

The Panel discussed four specifications for new ISPMs which are currently in country consultation. The Panel considered that an ISPM to be developed which should address pest movement by sea containers in international trade may potentially have a huge impact. Therefore, the Panel recommended strengthening stakeholder consultation while developing this standard.

During the joint EPPO/NAPPO meeting the participant’s views regarding the draft ISPMs and other main items on the agenda of CPM-5 were generally quite consistent, although stakeholder consultation was not finalized in all countries. The joint meeting discussed the need for developing ISPMs regarding seeds moving in trade. NAPPO had particular concern about how to communicate official declarations in view of re-export of seeds. EPPO would like to clarify on a global level, pests which are seed transmissible for major crops and what are appropriate treatments to address these pests. The joint meeting also considered issues of general and strategic interest in both regions. In particular the new US procedures for implementing official control were discussed in depth and the EU explained the terms of reference, planning and evaluation process of the EU Plant Health regime. Mr Fieselmann (USDA, Centre for Plant Health, Science and Technology) presented the LucID project for pest identification.

Participants – view more pictures