2454 final report.pdf - Agra CEAS Consulting

Evaluation of the Community Plant Health Regime: Final Report
DG SANCO Evaluation Framework Contract Lot 3 (Food Chain)
The lack of incentives in the current system for private operators and growers to report the
presence of new findings is clearly identified by both MS CAs and stakeholders. Producers
mainly fear the severity of potential phytosanitary measures and potential damage in the
production/trade, although the variation in producer perception and attitude is noted. For
commercial operators the short term commercial profit/- interest of individual companies appears
to generally weigh above the longer term interest of society and governments to ensure plant
health. This is clearly illustrated by the following examples:
A problem with an HO such as Anoplophora or PWN is that these appear more in areas of
wider public interest rather than production areas as such. They are therefore of lesser
economic impact to individual stakeholders, hence it is more difficult to create incentives
for individual private operators to act. In such cases there may also be strong public
opposition to taking effective measures against the HO on economic grounds linked to
potential losses for the wider area where the outbreak occurred (e.g. cutting trees in a
tourist area in a MS);
By contrast, in other cases such as for Dutch elm disease in forestry the fear of a repeated
incident acts as an incentive to notify;
In the case of Diabrotica, stakeholders are afraid to report an outbreak to the authorities as
this may mean that their product is destroyed if found to be infected or that an area will be
delimited and production prohibited. This means significant losses for producers and even
more risks of going out of business). Similar examples are noted in other commercial
sectors.
A compensation scheme would strengthen the incentive to notify. The FCEC Evaluation of the
solidarity regime in 2007 reports that:
―To cover the losses to producers, various MS have developed national support schemes.
Considering the 24 MS having responded to the survey, 12 have developed a public or ad hoc
compensation scheme funded by provision in the State budget, 1 has developed a public
scheme fully funded by the compulsory fees of the producers, 1 has developed a private
scheme taken over by a public scheme and 1 has developed a private scheme. In 7 MS, no
support scheme exists or the possibility exists in the legislation but is not applied in
practice.‖ 153
For the majority of the interviewees, the existing solidarity regime is not seen as providing an
incentive for stakeholders to notify, but rather as an incentive for CAs to notify, as the delays in
notification are taken into consideration in the evaluation of the dossiers 154 . A dossier may not be
accepted for solidarity funding if it is proven that the MS waited too long to notify. The main
justification for this perception is the fact that producer losses are not considered as eligible costs
by the solidarity regime and that cases of natural spread are not subject to co-financing.
153 This includes the private insurance scheme in the NL for the potato sector (PotatoPol) or another example within
the Spanish law; operators can be paid some compensation if their crops are infected, however this compensation is
paid whether the operator notifies or not.
154 It is noted that, prior to 1997, there was no solidarity funding, so no financial incentives for MS to notify.
Food Chain Evaluation Consortium 144