Horticulture House has host Defra and APHA colleague alongside gardening businesses for a meeting to talk over biosecurity and efforts to strengthen plant health . The day - long event was an chance to lease with larger and online retailers on the Biosecurity Strategy launched originally this year and talk about initiatives to support it , such as Plant Healthy . The encounter was fend for by Defra Minister Lord Benyon , and HTA Chairman and Plant Healthy Director , James Barnes , welcome attendees .
James Barnes warn delegate about the grandness of plant life health:‘Plant health should be front and meat of what we do here at the HTA . And I say so for very sound commercial - interrelate reason but also out of a sense of genuine moral and ethical beliefs . Having lived my childhood seeing the withering impact of Dutch Elm disease and now with my children see the even bigger wallop on our countryside of ash dieback . This may result in the dying of 120 million trees ; twice that of the loss of elm tree . If this scenario transpires , it would mean an economic cost to the nation of £ 7.5 billion over the next 10 years . ’
Plant wellness and biosecurity are of vital grandness to HTA member , and in welcoming the GB Plant Biosecurity Strategy on 9 January , HTA called for close work between industry and government to enable plants as part of a biosecure supply string to be trade swimmingly , expeditiously and cost - in effect . HTA stresses the motivation to channel a comprehensive limited review and action on both undeclared plant imports and any e - Commerce Department traders who are not operating securely , which pose a threat to British biosecurity , and to discuss further progressing an industry indemnity scheme .
As well as Plant Healthy , HTA actively keep going the Ornamental Horticulture Accreditation Scheme . OHAS is the only certified scheme in the UK entirely relevant and dedicated to cosmetic gardening . OHAS Standards are specifically plan to meet the specialist pauperism of the industriousness . They are get by by a consecrate team which means the standards are contrive for and oppose to specific technical and legislative requirements within the horticulture industry . In the last year , the OHAS Standards were strengthened in coition to plant health initiatives and biosecurity .
Minister of State Lord Benyon accost the seminar and adumbrate plans for public sector procurement of plants and trees to only use businesses that meet the criteria of the Plant Health Management Standard .
For more info : Horticultural trade Associationwww.the-hta.org.uk
