The next 8 weeks is a short, but critical window in the UK Protected Edibles calendar, with growers importing seeds and/or young plants into the UK in preparation for next season's crop, ensuring supermarket shelves are well stocked with high-quality British produce in 2025.
British Protected Edibles Growers are extremely concerned about the new BTOM checking and testing regimes at the UK border, brought in earlier this year, which are already causing significant delays to seed and plants reaching their destinations, and rather than re-assure, raise serious alarms around plant health and biosecurity. "The phytosanitary measures already taken in the protected edible cropping supply chain are exceptional, but we believe these measures will and are being compromised through the checks taking place at border control points (BCPs), jeopardizing the health and quality of seeds and plants reaching growers and posing undue additional risks to grower businesses."
Whilst as an industry we are working with partners including the NFU, Defra, APHA to resolve this, and productive conversations are being had, not enough is being done to allay these very real concerns or rapidly develop pragmatic, safe, and workable solutions. The checks being carried out at the border are not proportionate to the level of embedded biosecurity already in the protected edible supply chain, and the risks to crops are not being sufficiently mitigated.
Key concerns:
- Changes to import regulations, following Brexit, and the need for additional processes including seed testing and plant checks/testing at BCPs, are resulting in significant delays in the release of seeds for sowing and plants for planting, thus causing major supply chain disruption to the UK-protected edibles industry.
- Regarding the plant inspections at BCP's, we have serious and founded concerns about inadequate biosecurity measures, cross-contamination risk, lack of careful handling and uncontrolled holding conditions. The protected edibles supply chain has a very effective, embedded biosecure supply chain from seed producers to propagators to grower nurseries, which is being inherently put at risk by these additional processes, and we have not been reassured that our concerns are being taken seriously.
- Seed houses have reported testing delays of over 6 weeks in some cases of batches being sent to the UK, primarily caused by the turnround times for additional plant pathogen testing (already carried out at source), which makes crop programming and planning extremely difficult, thus causing significant negative economic impact – the burden of which is primarily with UK growers.
- Seed of European origin is already tested and certified to an equivalent standard as disease free before being dispatched to GB, making additional testing in the UK an unnecessary, costly and t ime-consuming duplication. A reciprocal phytosanitary agreement with the EU would mitigate many of these delays in this respect.
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For more information:
Nathalie Key
British Tomato Growers' Association
Tel: +44 (0) 7741 263193
Email: [email protected]
www.britishtomatoes.co.uk