Bonus episode: plant passports in the UK - what you need to know

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UPDATE

1 July 2020 - I have added a little insert to this episode as Defra has issued new guidance on who needs to register for plant passports: in effect this means that hobbyists/non-professionals do NOT have to register to issue plant passports. Check out this PDF for all the info. This is a change from what Nicola Spence says in the interview in this episode, but it’s good news if you were a hobbyist grower facing steep fees for a visit from the plant inspector.

New Europe-wide regulations on plant passports - official documentation that comes with plants when they are sold by professional horticulturists - came into force in mid-December 2019. The new rules have been the cause of a great deal of confusion in the UK about who needs to issue plant passports and what precisely they cover.

UK plant health chief, Nicola Spence.

In this bonus episode of On The Ledge, I interview the UK’s plant health chief, Nicola Spence (@plantchief on Twitter) about how the new rules on plant passports work, who needs to register for them, and what it means for everyone from hobbyists selling a few cuttings online to large nurseries. (Just to be clear, if you are outside the UK and Europe and do no selling with these countries, these regulations don’t affect you.)

If you’re new to On The Ledge, welcome! Find out more about the show’s creator and host Jane Perrone (that’s me!) here, and check out other episodes of the podcast here.

Scroll down for useful links for further information and contacts on Nicola Spence and plant passports, plus a full transcript of the interview.

• Read Nicola Spence’s bio here in the announcement of her appointment as the UK’s new chief plant health officer. You can follow her on Twitter as @plantchief.

• Read UK government guidance on plant passports.

• More on the UK government’s Don’t Risk It campaign, discouraging people from bringing plants and seeds into the UK when travelling overseas.

• If you want to email the Plant Health Inspectorate with a question about plant passports, contact apha_srsfmailbox@apha.gov.uk.

• Defra’s plant health portal has a PDF version of its plant passports introductory guide: in February 2020 this useful flowchart (will open as a PDF was issued.

KEY POINTS FROM THE INTERVIEW

There are many important points to take from my chat with Nicola Spence, but I’ve picked out a few below that I feel are particularly important:

• The plant passports cover ‘plants for planting’ which includes bulbs, corms, plants, cuttings - anything that can be put into a pot or in the ground and be a living plant. So, for instance, bunches of cut flower dahlias are not included, but dahlia tubers are.

• Anyone who sells plants ‘professionally’ needs to be registered - and that definition means anyone who makes a profit, be it £2.50 or £250,000.

• Plant/seed swaps where no money changes hands do not fall within the scope of plant passports. Likewise, plant giveaways where there is no profit involved, and plant giveaways, do not require plant passports.

• A ‘pragmatic, fair and proportionate’ is being taken to individuals and businesses who do not fulfil their obligations on plant passports: they will be contacted and asked to take certain steps to abide by the rules.

• Clearly the finer details of these new regulations are still being worked out, so if you are in any doubt about whether you need to register for plant passports, contact the APHA and they should be able to tell you how to proceed.

What do you think?

Once you’ve listened to the interview, I’d love to know what you think: how will plant passports affect you, have you registered yet and do you think these measures will help to keep damaging pests and diseases such as xylella out of the UK? As an occasional seller of plants and cuttings online, I am going to register with the APHA - I shall keep you posted on how the process goes. Get in touch with me by emailing ontheledgepodcast@gmail.com or adding a comment below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

JP: Nicola, thanks for joining me today. It's a topic that's been causing a lot of conversation around the plant growing world here in the UK, and I want to start by asking you about these new regulations that came in late last year, 2019.

What's the rationale between these new form of plant passports that have been introduced?

NS: Well, the new plant passport regulations widen both the scope of the kinds of plants which require a plant passport and also the scope of the operators who now must be registered and authorised.

We think that this will allow us to move from a more reactive approach to plant health that we have currently have, to a more proactive approach enabling us to better tackle pest and disease threats as they emerge.

JP: For the consumer that's buying plants in the garden centre or at a nursery or buying things mail order, what will they see in terms of a difference? Will there be anything to see in terms of a different approach to the plants they're receiving?

NS: Well, the requirement for plant passports is now going to be down to retail level, so that also captures distance sales -- for example, Internet trading -- so that all traders of plants must now be known to the competent authority, which is DEFRA, and will have plant health obligations.

So whether they're a nursery, a landscaper, a high street retailer or selling online, they will have obligations to be authorised and to keep records, so that when a consumer buys a plant they may well notice that now on the plant or the box or the label, there maybe a plant passport. But equally, if in some instances the plants have entered a store with a plant passport on a trolley, for example, and the consumer just buys one plant, they may not actually see the plant passport. So it's slightly depends on the kind of plant that they're buying and where they're buying it from.

JP: Right. What are the pests and diseases that you're most worried about? What are the big headline grabbing pests and diseases that we're concerned about here and trying to limit through this new regulation?

NS: Well, there is a range of pests and diseases we're concerned about. We list them all on the UK Plant Health Risk Register, but essentially for the kind of horticultural, ornamental plants traded, we're particularly concerned about things like Xylella Fastidiosa, which is a bacterial disease.

We're also concerned about various insect pests such as the Asian Longhorn Beetle, but there are a wide range of pests that we're concerned about.

JP: The wording of the plant passports says that this concerns all plants for planting. I've had people who've said, "Can you ask Nicola, what does plants for planting actually mean?" Are we talking about everything that goes in the ground or in a pot as opposed to produce that might be plant based, but is intended for the kitchen? Is that the distinction?

NS: Essentially plants for planting are anything that's going to be either put in the ground or kept in a pot and essentially is a living plant rather than, for example, a cut flower or a cutting of something that's been used as a herb. So it's really anything that's going to be planted in the ground, remain planted, or be replanted.

Obviously cuttings and propagation material, things like seed potatoes would also be included and potted herbs.

JP: Right, I've got you. That makes sense. One of the other issues that seems to have come up since this legislation came in, is the vast numbers of people who are often using social media, going online. They're not professional nurseries, but they've got a few plants that they're propagating and either swapping or selling.

Can you just clarify for me, what does it actually mean in terms of who needs to be registered? I've heard conflicting advice from people. Some people saying, "Well, I'm a hobbyist, so I don't need to be registered even though I'm selling plants online and posting them to people." Can you just clarify that point?

NS: Yes. We have had several clubs and organisations contact us for clarification. We're still kind of working through the final details, but essentially if a hobbyist or an enthusiast is making a profit from sales, then we think that they should be in scope for plant passporting -- just as in the same way, if they're selling cuttings and so on. I know that many clubs and societies have a swapping service. They might share seeds, they might share material. We feel that would fall outside the scope. So it's really whether somebody is essentially making a business out of it, making a profit, trading for financial benefit and therefore it's of a greater scale than somebody just kind of swapping or giving away plants at a local club.

JP: So for those people in that category who are likely to be less genned up on all this stuff than hopefully the nurseries who presumably are much more engaged in your work anyway, what do they need to do? If somebody is selling some cuttings or plants online, they need to register, and will they be inspected? Do they have to pay fees? Could you just explain that because that seems to be causing people some confusion?

NS: What we would do is ask those people to contact us through the Gov.uk plant health pages and there are various online information and an email address to contact us, so that they can notify us of the kind of trade that they're doing and then we can make a judgment as to whether they need to be registered.

Essentially, registering can be done online, but authorisation to issue plant passports means that we do need a Plant Health and Seeds Inspector to make a visit and decide whether or not that person meets minimum plant health standards in terms of traceability, knowledge about the plants that they're trading in. In terms of fees, we do charge a minimum fee for an inspection and again, that's all set out on the web pages. It's based on a kind of minimum time unit of 15 minutes or part thereof, so for somebody who's a very small scale operator it should be fairly straightforward and simple to do.

Obviously a larger operation, it might take a little bit more time to do the authorisation, but fees are payable for somebody to be authorised to issue plant passports. So I think the key thing is determining whether or not the business is in scope first of all, and then what the cost of the authorisation might be.

JP: There's concern that this regulation might kill off this burgeoning trade in online in hobbyist growers selling stuff. I guess it's that balance between the necessity to ensure plant health and encouraging people. Being into plants is a great thing, but actually we've got to be careful here. What would you say to a hobbyist grower who's a bit intimidated and worried about this whole procedure of registering and so on? Is there a likelihood that some people might get in touch and then discover that actually they've registered but they don't actually need to be inspected?

NS: Again, I think on a case by case basis we would encourage businesses or traders to get in touch. They can speak to somebody from the Animal and Plant Health Agency and find out whether they are in scope or not.

I know some people are saying, "Well, this is rather burdensome," but actually just because you're trading informally doesn't mean you're buyer secure and indeed we have had examples of where pests and diseases have been introduced through hobbyists, people bringing in cuttings not really realising that there might be a risk, and of course then if you share those with friends or other hobbyist gardeners, there's a risk that you might spread a pest or a disease. So it's really important to our buyer's security that everybody who potentially might bring in a plant or move a plant with a pest or disease, really understands that they have a responsibility as well as the larger scale traders -- because together we all need to take responsibility for managing the risk of introducing or spreading pests and diseases.

JP: Indeed. One of the other points that I wanted to raise was about -- and I know there's another campaign that you've been running -- to do with people who might not have that much interest in plants at all, but who go away on holiday overseas and really have no idea that they're not supposed to be bringing things back in their suitcase, plant material. Is that something you are increasing awareness of or trying to campaign against, because there must be lots of people falling into that category? I see a lot of comments online, "Oh, I'm going to this European city and I'm going to buy a load of houseplants and bring them back to the UK." What would you say to those kind of people?

NS: Well, I mean at the moment we have the EU Plant Health Regulations which mean that most plants can still be moved within the European Union in passenger baggage, but now the new rules state that if you are bringing in plants for planting or any plant material from outside the EU that we describe as a 'third country,' you can only do that now if you have a Phytosanitary Certificate.

That means that material must have been inspected in the country of origin, examined for post and diseases, deemed to be free of pest and diseases by a competent authority, ie the Plant Health Service in that country and then a Phytosanitary Certificate is issued. So that means that any informal trade from outside the EU will now be in scope for this much higher level of regulation to try and stop the import of plant material that might result in importing a pest or disease.

JP: I guess this is the challenge. It's so hard to monitor everybody coming in and out of the country in various different ways. I guess the constant worry is that something's going to slip through the net and even though awareness is growing there's going to be some crisis caused by just one person bringing something in without following the regulations.

Are we ever going to be able to reach the stage where we just don't have to worry about worry about these diseases anymore, or is this going to be an ongoing battle?

NS: I think it will be an ongoing battle, and we can't eliminate all risks by regulation of plants. We feel that it's also important that the public really take more responsibility, so over last summer we had a publicity campaign at many airports and ports and on ferries, which was called 'Don't Risk It.' Very brightly coloured exhibits, posters and light boxes, essentially explaining that you could bring back pests and diseases as hitchhikers on plants and plant products in your bags and we don't want anybody to bring any plant material -- whether it's flowers, cuttings, seeds, tubers, etc, from their holidays because of the risk.

Most people would not want to knowingly bring back plant material where they thought there could be a risk. So a combination of that public awareness, public action and then also now regulating all traded plants -- whether that's through a large business, a retailer or an Internet trader -- so that we are aware of what materials are being traded. Because it's passported we've got a record of it, and because we've got a record of it, it means we can trace it. So if there is a problem, if there is an outbreak, we can go to that plant passport record, we can find out what the origin was, where did it come from, we can trace back up the supply chain and then we can also find out where was it sold onto and go and trace the end users if we can, so that if there is a problem we can tackle the whole supply chain, if necessary go and destroy plants, remove them from the supply chain to minimise the risk that pests and diseases will spread.

JP: Right. As you say, it's a bit of a detective work involved, I guess, in many of these cases. There are a few other case studies that I had from listeners who wanted to ask about specific instances, particularly professional gardeners and garden designers who might be popping out to the garden centre or a wholesaler to buy some bedding plants, or some bulbs for their clients and planting them in their garden. Do they need to get registered and involved in plant passports or is the plant passport that's coming from that retailer sufficient?

NS: Well, bulbs are included in the scope of plant passports because obviously they are plants for planting. They're going to turn into a plant, so landscapers, gardeners and designers should all be registered. That means they can be provided with plant passports when they purchase the plants and then they will be able to keep a record because they have a responsibility to the clients that they're designing for or building for.

However, they only need to be authorised to issue their own plant passports if they're supplying to other professional operators, and it's the responsibility of the landscaper to declare themselves as an operator so that it's clear within that supply chain who are the professional operators. Obviously the person owing the garden effectively is the end user. They might want to keep the passports to show that they purchased the plants from somebody authorised, but essentially it's the operators, the landscapers, the designers and the suppliers of the plants who need to be authorised and issue the passports.

JP: So just talking about cut flowers, presumably again we're going back to the plants for planting point. Presumably a cut flower that's just intended to go in a vase wouldn't be affected, but a dahlia tuber bought from a cut flower producer would need a plant passport?

NS: Yes, that's right. Simply a bunch of cut flowers does not need to be passported. However, if there is a bulb or a corm or a tuber which will produce flowers that will be cut at a subsequent date, those plants, the tuber material, does need to be plant passported.

So, for example, dahlia tubers. They are plants for planting because they're going to go into the ground, they'll turn into a flower, so they do require plant passports but then if you cut dahlia flowers and sell a bunch of dahlia flowers, those don't require passporting.

JP: A bit of a personal example here. I help to run a community herb garden and in past years for our open day, we have purchased herb plug plants which we have then grown on and sold at the open day to members of the public. Would we need to be concerned with plant passports? Is there an issue, a difference between face to face and mail order?

NS: This is a bit of a difficult area in terms of are you an amateur here or are you actually trading those plants? I think this is something that is still under discussion, but generally speaking if the plants that you're giving away or you're selling are going to be planted, then they will fall under the scope of plant passporting if they're being moved by a professional operator.

Equally, where you've got plant societies that do seed exchanges, we feel that those societies should be registered and receive plant passports for any seeds or goods that they buy. I know some specialist societies they buy bulk seed and then they distribute it to their members. So in that instance, the people actually doing the purchasing of the seed, we think should be registered. They'll receive a plant passport. However, if they're then giving away the seed to members, those movements don't have to be passported because in that case we would still have traceability. We'd have traceability from the authorised purchaser of the seeds. They would have the plant passports and then again presumably in a plant society you know who your members are. The material then gets distributed, but you don't need to give a passport to every individual in that seed club. The person actually who organises it and buys the seed should receive and hold those passports for traceability.

JP: Obviously, there's a lot to this regulation. When you say 'under discussion,' does that mean that at some point you'll be issuing a final edict on those slightly more tricky issues about professional growers?

NS: Yes. It's partly the legislation comes from the European Commission and some of their legislation hasn't quite been finalised. We're taking an pragmatic approach to this. Our wish is that if people want to seek guidance, we'll look at their case and be able to advise them as to whether or not they're in scope or not and if they are, we'll help them and support them to become compliant. We are taking a pragmatic approach. We realise this is quite new to large numbers of people who previously didn't have to fulfil these regulatory obligations, so it's in everybody's interest that we work together and try and come up with a pragmatic approach so that people can take responsibility for the plants that they're trading, but also continue to operate.

We know how important and valuable it is that people get together to appreciate plants. People love their gardens and they want a selection of plants available, so we want them to be able to do that but understand what the risks might be. Make sure that they're being as responsible as possible and then they can appreciate plants and seeds in the future.

JP: Inevitably there will be a few people who fall through the net on this, and either just refuse to register and become authorised, or just don't hear about this. What will happen to those people who should be registered and authorised but don't do it? Are there penalties or will it be a question of carrot and stick with people who are a bit reluctant?

NS: I think in most cases we're going to deal with this in a pragmatic, fair and proportionate way. This will probably start with us contacting a business or an individual and explaining to them that they are non-compliant, give them advice on what they need to do, give them time to complete that action and then follow up to check that the action has been completed. That's the approach we intend to take. We'll deal with cases on non-compliance on a case by case basis, but very much working with individuals and businesses and clubs to help them to become compliant over a reasonable period of time. We do have people to help and support with that.

JP: Presumably you'll be going after the big fish first though? I've heard people say that they've received plants mail order since the regulations came in with no sign of a plant passport in any of the documentation they've received from quite large nurseries. So presumably even some of the big nurseries right now are struggling to come to grips with this new regulation.

NS: Well, we would expect big nurseries to already be in the previous plant passporting scheme, but certainly we gather a lot of intelligence. We use Internet searches to find out who is trading, what kind of material they're trading and then we follow up with phone calls or visits. So we're very keen to find out any intelligence about who is trading plants that we can follow that up, and certainly any large business should definitely be compliant, and should probably already have been compliant prior to this new regulation coming in.

So we will be following up with them and taking action to ensure they become compliant over the coming months.

JP: What kind of records are involved here? Are we talking about a spreadsheet showing where plants have come from, if they've been propagated from your own stock or bought from somewhere else? Is it a simple as something like a single spreadsheet listing your plant sales and sources and dated and any other information, or is there some particular way that you want people to record this information?

NS: We're quite flexible about record keeping. The 'must' is that you keep records for at least three years. They could be stored physically, ie you could actually keep the plant passport, file it somewhere, or you can digitally record it in a spreadsheet. The key information is that you record the professional operator who supplied the material, any information that was on the passport, ie country of origin, batch number, all that kind of information, and keep that information at least three years. In cases where we do have outbreaks or interceptions of pest and diseases, we go back to nurseries and traders and ask to see those records and then that becomes the basis for a track and trace exercise, which means that we can follow up on material and go and check whether or not it's infested with a pest or disease. So it's very important to us.

JP: If you're a very small hobbyist kind of grower, what will this plant inspection involve? Will it be sitting down with a cup of tea and looking at my window sill and saying, "Okay, what do you know about Xylella?" What will people have to come up with at that inspection in terms of showing their competence and knowledge?

NS: Well, again, I think it's very much according to the scale of the operation. For a large plant business we would expect there to be somebody in that business who perhaps has done some training, is aware of plant pests, is aware of some of the high risk hosts that they're dealing with and organises their nursery in such a way that they have good practice in terms of, for example, if you are trading high risk hosts of something like Xylella Fastidiosa, we would recommend that you kept those hosts in one part of the nursery away from other material. Somebody might choose to do that.

Again, good record keeping, knowing where your material has come from, taking decisions about sourcing, that kind of thing. Checking that somebody has a basic understanding about recognising pests so that if they're issuing a plant passport, they know how to examine a plant. We've got very highly trained Plant, Health and Seeds Inspectors who will visit the premises, visit the person, spend a bit of time with them just checking basic competency and then be able to advise sources of information.

One good source of information is the UK Plant Health Portal. That's an open online resource. It has the UK Plant and Health Risk Register. It has lots of pest fact sheets. It's got good photographs of some of the common pests, some of the high risk pests, and talks about current threats in plant health. I would encourage anybody trading plants and plant material to familiarise themselves with some of that basic information so that again they are taking responsibility.

JP: Once you've been inspected for that first time, will the inspection be a regular thing or will it be a one-off thing that you're then authorised and away you go?

NS: Yes, I think it does depend on the scale of the operation and the type of material that's being traded. We would expect most passporting operators to have an annual inspection, but in some cases if somebody's new to the plant trade or was trading very high risk hosts or needed a bit more support, they might have one visit a year. It rather depends on the nursery or the operator.

JP: National collections are obviously really, really important in the UK for protecting rare plant collections. Presumably from what you've been saying, anyone who was a national collection who is giving plants to other people to make sure they don't die out, they will need to be registered? Is that right?

NS: Well, we feel that if a national collection holder is selling surplus plants for profit, then that would fall under the scope of plant passporting, whereas in most cases if they were just giving away plants to make sure that rare plants don't die out and several people have them, that's probably likely to be exempt.

We are actually looking at this at the moment to get a better idea as to how national collections currently operate, but of course it's important with a national collection -- you know, the whole point of it is to protect sometimes rare or valuable species. We want to make sure they're not inadvertently spreading pests and diseases with those plants. So ideally I think we would like national collection holders to be plant passporting, but there may be some instances where they're giving away small amounts of material that that could be done without a plant passport.

JP: Instagram and Facebook giveaways are really big right now for plants and plant cuttings. How would that be affected by plant passports because that's obviously not involving any money changing hands, but is involving a potentially disease ridden plant moving about the country? Would that be affected at all?

NS: Again, if people are making a profit, it effectively becomes a distant sale so that would come under the scope of plant passporting, but if it's just swapping or giving away, not making any profit, then we would consider that as falling outside the scope of plant passports. So again it's sort of depends on the scale of things and whether people are selling plants.

We have had some cases of material being traded on the Internet and I think in this case it was for sales, where we traced it back to a quarantine pest actually. So again, we will be monitoring social media. We do extensive Internet searches for key words, key plants, particularly high risk hosts, so that we can monitor that. But essentially if it's just giving away or swapping with no profits, then that will likely fall outside the scope of plant passporting. We want to be proportionate about this, but equally we do need to monitor and see how things develop and if there are some misty trades being distributed -- even not for profit -- we would be concerned about that.

JP: One of the things I've been seeing in press reports about this regulation is that they seem to be making, from what you've said, an incorrect distinction between selling in person and selling mail order or online. In other words, if you're selling in person, it's fine. If you're at a plant fair you don't need plant passports. It's only if you're selling mail order or online, but from what you're saying, that sounds like that's not right?

NS: Well, I think it depends on the scale and scope. Essentially it comes down to are you running this as a business, even albeit a very small business in terms of making a profit from those plant sales? We feel that if you're doing that, then you should be in scope for plant passporting. But if you're at a village fair, and you've got a few plants that are just going to people in the village, we would take a pragmatic approach that generally that would be fine.

And obviously some fairs have professional plant traders who come in and are selling lots of plants and that's their business. We feel that they would be in scope, whereas a volunteer giving away plant material we would think that would be outside the scope.

It's difficult to decide whose a professional here and who is a hobbyist or a sort of amateur here.

JP: I think that really is the crux for me; the difference between if you're talking about a professional... By law, definition of professional, is somebody who's just making a profit -- whether it's £2.50 or £250,000. Basically that's what you're saying. That's the people covered, it's anyone who's making any amount of money out of plant sales, those are the people you're targeting?

NS: Yeah.

JP: Just a couple of questions more generally about Brexit, the dreaded 'B' word and plant health. Obviously at the moment as this podcast goes out, we're in a limbo period. Where will things move on from here? Will there be further changes as Brexit is implemented and trade deals get established?

NS: We're about to enter a transition period until the end of December 2020 and during that transition period businesses should continue to use the current processes. So trading plants and plant products we will continue to follow the current regulations and there'll be no immediate change to that.

Over time we will be reviewing that, but really it's too soon to be able to say anything about what the future arrangements might be.

JP: And just finally, Scotland. How does this play out in Scotland? Have they got their own regulations on the matter of plant passports that's separate in different...?

NS: In Scotland, plant health is a devolved matter so they have their own regulatory system. However, they have not diverged from the plant passporting regulations in England. So essentially they're following exactly the same set of regulations implemented in Scotland in the same way.

JP: Nicola Spence, it's been really interesting to talk to you. If anyone's got any further questions as a result of this, or wants to find out if they need to be registered, what's the best thing to do? The Plant Health Portal is the place to go online?

NS: Well, if you go to the Plant Health Portal, along the top banner you will see 'Plant Health Regulation.' You can click on that and it will take you to various pages, including the Gov.UK pages.

You can also speak to your local Plant Health Inspector and you can contact the Plant Health Inspectorate apha_srsfmailbox@apha.gov.uk and that email address is also on those web pages. So that takes you to the Plant Health Inspectorate. You'll be able to email someone or speak to someone about a specific query.

We'll also be having APHA Plant Health Inspectors at various shows over the summer, so the Welsh Show, various shows in England and Scotland, so that again you can go and talk to a Plant Health Inspector at some of those horticulture and agricultural shows to get a bit more advice.

JP: Fantastic, and I'll include that information in the show notes as well at my website, JanePerrone,com.

Nicola, thank you so much for joining me. That's been very enlightening.

NS: Thank you very much.

Fab, thanks for letting me know. We usually send out an email a week or so before to let volunteers know when the next session is. Times and days vary, as not everyone has the same availability. If you have your own hand tools and gloves that is great but we can supply them, just let us know. I hope that makes sense but let me know if you have any questions!

CREDITS

This week's show featured the tracks Roll Jordan Roll by the Joy Drops and Endeavour by Jahzzar.

Logo design by Jacqueline Colley.