INTERNATIONAL SEED TRADE AND PHYTOSANITARY ISSUES: A SEED INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Tom Moore, HM Clause

Forty Years of Seed Trade

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A Complicated Trade Model

1.Breeding parental lines: Europe State 1

2.Production of basic seeds: Europe State 2

3. Treatment and manufacture of basic seeds: Europe state 1

4. Production of hybrid seeds: China

5. Treatment and manufacture of commercial seeds: Europe state 1

6. Commercial packaging: USA

7. Final market: Mexico

*Adapted from a presentation by Ric Dunkle, PPQ Seed Summit, 2014

The Dilemma with Regulating Seed Movements • International seed trade is continuing to rise!

• Research/breeder seed: needed to support development of new varieties that are better adapted

• More hybrid varieties are being developed: parents are often produced in different countries

• Stock seed production

• Counter season production to meet market needs more rapidly

• Movement of commercial products

• Movements often based on “just in time” concept

• Re-export in the seed industry is a business practice

The Dilemma with Regulating Seeds

• Over 300 different seed species and 65,000 different varieties representing all seed types (vegetable, flower, forage and row crop, grasses)

• Thousands of pests potentially involved; mainly plant/seed pathogens

• Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of shipments globally per year!

• For a given pest, is seed a pathway? If so, what is the appropriate phytosanitary measure?

The Seed Regulation Dilemma • The current solution for many (most) NPPOs is to add

phytosanitary requirements for individual pests or pathogens on individual seed species, often for all origins

Focus is on regulation of individual shipments

Many countries re-test at the POE

• These individual actions add up!

• The impact for seed companies is the need to respond to an increasing patchwork of phytosanitary requirements often for the same seed species

Many pests are technically unjustified-seed often not a pathway (example: tomato seed – over 200 requirements globally; 75% of them are not justified)

The Seed Regulation Dilemma

• NPPOs are having difficulty keeping up: • Too many PRAs to get done – severe backlogs

• Not enough resources for inspections and testing needed for timely export certifications

• Lab capacities for testing at or beyond capacity

• Pushing the problem off shore – onto the industry

• High reliance on seed testing but few standardized international methods have been developed

• Lots of re-testing at POEs; non-harmonized methods often lead to discrepancies in test results

• Low risk pests are treated the same as high risk pests

New Approaches to Regulate Seed Movements Are Needed

•New guidance from the IPPC seed standard

•Pathway analysis/PRA

•Re-export certification

• Seed industry practices that reduce phytosanitary risk

New Approaches to Regulate Seed Movements Are Needed • Evolution away from regulation of individual consignments

toward regulation of seed companies themselves • Focus on recognition of practices that reduce overall risk

• NPPOs would develop non-prescriptive “standards” for phytosanitary security (zero risk is impossible!)

• Companies would present proposals based on their specific (often proprietary) practices (promotes innovation)

• Develop accreditation programs that rely on audit approaches

• NPPOs and industry would direct specific activities/requirements on any significant remaining risk

• To remain competitive, companies will develop improved production and post harvest practices

New Initiatives in the U.S. (APHIS)

NSHAPP

ReFreSH

NATIONAL SEED HEALTH ACCREDITATION PILOT PROGRAM (NSHAPP)

APHIS’ Pilot for Imported Seed

What is NSHAPP?

• National Seed Health Accreditation Pilot Program (NSHAPP)

• Testing a new model for mitigating risk of imported seed

• Coordinated effort between the Iowa State University and APHIS

• Industry participants voluntarily self-test imported seed and report results to APHIS

• Initial target – CGMMV in cucumbers, melons, watermelon

NSHAPP Successes

• Detected and destroyed positive seed lots

• Increased collaboration with industry

• Increased knowledge of seed business models within APHIS

• Creating ideas for future seed work

Regulatory Framework for Seed Health

ReFreSH

A New APHIS Approach

• Regulatory Framework for Seed Health (ReFreSH)

• Risk-, science-based systems approach

• Work within current seed trade model

• Leverage industry best practices

• Promote global adoption of seed trade framework

ReFreSH-Clean Seed “Passport” • Participating company will be issued a clean seed

document

• Company will be able to move seed among participating countries without phytosanitary certificates for each consignment

• Production process will be certified/accredited at each stage; practices will be audited

• Industry required to report pests

• Goal: Facilitate safer global movement of clean seed

Developing the Framework: ReFreSH Workshop, January 27, 2017 • Joint APHIS-seed industry workshop

• Purpose: understand current industry practices • Pest management

• Post-harvest processing

• Quality management

• Evaluate risk

• Determine available risk mitigation tools

• Identify gaps

• Industry collaboration is critical!

Information Needs

• Seed production practices

•Global production areas and typical movement patterns

•Pests of high concern

•Differences between small and large producers

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Risk Characterization

•Pathway analysis

•Pest risk assessment of high profile crops

•Determine critical quarantine pests that follow the seed pathway

EFFECTS OF SEED QUALITY MANAGEMENT PRACTICES ON PHYTOSANITARY RISK REDUCTION

José Laborde (Postdoc - Biostatistics) NCSU-CIPM/USDA-ARS

Stephen Ippolito (Postdoc - Mathematics) ASTA/USDA-ARS

Gary Munkvold (Professor and Chair, Seed Technology & Business Graduate Program) ISU

Alissa Kriss (Math-Stats-Pathology Consultant - Liaison) Syngenta

Tim Gottwald (Epidemiologist/Research Leader) USDA-ARS

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Goal

• “To develop a probabilistic risk-based model to assess the efficacy of seed quality management practices in reducing phytosanitary risks as well as enhancing disease control”

• Initially, the main focus is CMM (Clavibacter michiganensis subsp. Michiganensis) as a model system.

Photo: http://www.posgradoeinvestigacion.uadec.mx/CienciaCierta/CC33/1.html#.VmnjBk2FNaQ

Motivation for our modeling approach Module 1 Module 2 - 4 Module 5 & 6 Module 7 Module 8

• The seed goes through a pathway which has several components. • Some components introduce risk and some others are mitigation measures of that risk.

• Each component may have different outcomes associated with a probability. • Not every component can readily generate data to populate a model. • Hence, this problem can not be solved by simple data collection and later

performing logistic regression since not every covariate is or can be measured.

Overall Seed Production Model

Technical Needs

•Develop validated testing methods for pathogens of concern

•Resolve sampling question

•What do we do with small lots of seeds?

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Leading a Global Conversation

• APHIS is working with other NPPOs to establish widely accepted global seed movement system that promotes a managed risk approach

• APHIS has had initial conversations with QUADs countries (CA, AUS, NZ) and Netherlands

• Initial discussions for an international NPPO meeting this year on seeds

Collaborative Effort to Build Global System

APHIS

Industry Foreign NPPOs

ReFreSH Contacts APHIS: Angela McMellen-Brannigan

Email: angela.mcmellen-brannigan@aphis.usda.gov Phone 1-301-851-2314

Industry: Ric Dunkle Email: rdunkle@betterseed.org

Phone 1 703-226-9275

Regulation of Small Seed Lots

• Huge problem for the seed industry

• Problem occurs when a sample needs to be taken for seed testing – molecular testing methods often require sample sizes that can deplete the consignment

U.S. System and Philosophy Regarding Seed • Seed is generally considered low risk (except for certain

seed transmitted pests)

• The market place dictates what seed varieties are marketed • No mandatory variety registration in the U.S.

• Seed performance is regulated according to the label (FSA)

• Poor performing varieties do not compete well in the market place

• Intellectual property protected through PVP and patents

• APHIS makes no distinction based on intended use of seed • Seed lots must only meet phytosanitary import requirements,

whether the intend use is for breeding, research, seed increase, seed commercialization

• No distinctions made on size of the seed consignment

U.S. Regulatory Structure for Seeds

• Seed that is prohibited entry can still be imported for research purposes • Import permit required; permit conditions customized based on

nature of risk

• High risk seed must enter into Federal quarantine (Beltsville quarantine facility): seed is inspected/tested, grown under quarantine conditions, and progeny seed is released (sometimes into PEQ).

• APHIS has special requirements for importation of seed packets (e.g. garden seed packets that are for commercial sale)

Are There other Options for Phytosanitary Certification of Small Seed Lots?

• Inspection/testing of mother plants rather than the seeds prior to shipment(?)

• Produce a generation of seeds in quarantine (at origin or in Brazil), inspect and release progeny seed(?)

• Adjust measures to the risk of the seed species(?)

• In general, find ways to reduce reliance on seed testing for small seed lots

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS