The International Association of Horticultural Producers ( AIPH ) on-line league ‘ Working Together for Better Plant Health ’ on 23 February 2025 , brought together a global audience of growers , traders , scientist , industrial plant - health professional , and decision - makers from more than 50 countries .
An external cast of lowering - weighting and high - tone contributors from the decorative horticulture diligence presented their current regional regulatory framework and home initiatives in place against plant life pests and disease .
Commenting on the conference , Mr. Tim Briercliffe , AIPH Secretary - General , said “ From this conference , it was clear to see that in many land around the public there is industry recognition that regulatory compliance alone is not enough to protect the sphere from plant health threats and to maintain confidence in plant life trade . National , industriousness - led schemes have emerged over recent years . They have been developed independently , but with the same goal . The group discussion identified a clear need for more dialog between commonwealth on this issue and the possibility of developing a benchmark standard that could provide outside acknowledgement . The potential for collaboration with National Plant Protection Organisations in this will also enable growers to develop systems that reach common end in a cost - effectual way . AIPH will review the conclusions of the conference and our recent plant wellness survey to make further recommendations for manufacture collaboration into the future . ”
Plant healthPlant Health is important , not just to the audience of this group discussion but to the whole of humanity . Keynote verbalizer Mr Ralph Lopian of Finland , Chair of the International Steering Committee for the International Year of Plant Health ( IYPH ) 2020 , put this situation into linear perspective . His presentation explained how much damage plague and diseases make , not just on lost lucrativeness ( approximate at $ 220bn ) for horticultural products , but also on the environment and the resulting knock - on force on the food chain .
The International Year of Plant Health 2020 is an initiative dress up by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the IPPC to communicate this situation . In recognition of the many industry - result initiatives to support works health , Mr. Lopian announced that the IPPC ( International Plant Protection Convention ) would be releasing guidance to National Plant Protection Organisations ( NPPOs ) on how to recognise and work with non - regulatory manufacture schemes and go-ahead .
SurveyAIPH members are organizations representing the interests of ornamental producer in their country or region . At the beginning of the year members and striking completed a plant health sketch of a sort that has never been done before . The aim was to identify manufacture - moderate initiatives that endorse growers in attest honorable plant health practices across springy flora supply chain . AIPH Technical Advisor , Dr. Audrey Timm , provided a review of that sight , identifying what support the diligence has from programs that provide testing and corroboration of plant wellness direction systems and processes .
More than three - quarter ( 77.5 % ) of those surveyed indicate a need for a voluntary international [ inter - regional ] industrial plant health and biosecurity monetary standard . A full paper from AIPH will be available to retrospect in May .
While regulatory framework are of critical importance , and regulations must be fit for function , the review services that plunk for them must be efficient and effective ; world biosecurity begin with the producers and traders of plants . This has take many industry associations to build up their own schemes to support their sphere with industrial plant wellness .
The AIPH International Plant Health Conference gave Speaker a chopine to partake in their own national initiatives .
SpeakersMr Peter Vaughan , CEO of Greenlife Industry Australia , explained how the Australian ornamental industriousness has collaborated with regulator to make a robust plant health arrangement and enhanced ‘ bio - secure assurance .
Mr. Leonardo Capitanio , President of the Italian Nurserystock Exporters Association ( ANVE ) , apportion his experiences on how Italian agriculturalist have tackled the challenges of Xylella and how they are providing more industrial plant wellness assurances for the future .
Mr. Alistair Yeomans submit the development of the unexampled Plant Healthy program for the UK , its carrying out in the diligence , and its next plans .
Mr. John van Ruiten , Director of Naktuinbouw , described the social system and operation of two plant life health programs that support different decorative gardening industry sector .
Mr. Craig Regelbrugge , Senior Vice President - Advocacy and Research , AmericanHort , draw political platform in the USA that are facilitating the quicker bm of plant across regional and international borders .
Ms. Anita Heuver , Treasurer of the Canadian Nursery and Landscape Association , presented the connexion ’s perspective on the value of their ISO - same system glide path to achieve greenhouse certification and how it contributes to an diligence that produces plant that suffer high phytosanitary measure .
Providing perspective from the international cutting flower supply - strand were Ms. Sylvie Mamias , Secretary - General of Union Fleurs , and Mr. Andrés Saenz Merino , Director of CENIFLORES in Colombia .
From the European perspective , Ms. Mamias shared insights and lesson find out in plow with plant life wellness regulatory frameworks and emerging works wellness issues that bear upon international swop flows and called for responsible and due persevering supplying - chains .
Mr. Saenz Merino explain the challenges of importing and exporting from his “ paradise that we share with the pests ” without any industry - organized flora wellness scheme .
AIPH Vice President Tim Edwards said , “ We Practitioners have to have some knowledge of Plant Health . We have to operate our businesses in ways that deliver biosecurity , we have to discover ways of demonstrating that we have in full discharged our responsibility in those field , and we have to adapt our pattern when the landscape of Plant Health variety , as it ineluctably does . ”
