Increased globalization, trade and, specifically, international movement of plant commodities are associated with greater risk of the spread of plant pests. A Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) evaluates biological, scientific and economic evidence to determine whether an organism is a pest, whether it should be regulated, and the strength of any phytosanitary measures to be taken against it. The process provides technical justification for decisions that can affect and support international trade by making sure appropriate procedures are put in place to prevent cross-border introductions of plant pests.
Nominated organizations, National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs), are responsible for carrying out these plant commodity PRAs, which focus on individual pests to determine the likelihood of their introduction (through various pathways), establishment, spread and potential impact.
CABI is supporting the identification, assessment and management of plant pest introduction risks with the CABI Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) Tool.
The new PRA Tool supports informed decision making by presenting key scientific information from the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC) in a way that helps the user decide and justify the most appropriate actions to reduce the risk of damaging plant pests being introduced and to ensure plants and plant products are transported safely between countries.
Launched in October 2019, the PRA Tool is available via the CPC through a marginal increase to the basic subscription but free to NPPOs of 97 lower-income countries.
Aligned with international standards and structured around the different stages of a PRA, the tool also offers users the ability to add new information and overrule existing Compendia data as well as generate and categorize pest lists.
In December 2019, the PRA Tool was enhanced by a significant new feature that enables the risk assessor to save updates on the pathway PRA workflow for pest statuses in the importing or exporting country. This saves risk assessors time in not having to duplicate changes to data in subsequent risk assessments and allows CABI to improve and update pest data.
What do current users say about the PRA Tool?
The below recommendations are from three NPPOs located in Africa.
“The CABI Pest Risk Analysis Tool facilitates faster and efficient searches for pest related information, through click of a button. It facilitates business, which would otherwise be on hold for several months, awaiting availability of information from scattered sources”. “The Crop Protection Compendium is real-time, with current information, I wouldn’t know where we would be without it!”
“This PRA Tool will help me in mentoring younger plant health practitioners on Pest Risk Analysis and plant protection issues”.
“I would like to thank CABI for the good work in the development of the PRA decision support tool. The PRA tool is very timely as we are currently required to produce a number of PRA for a number of pests regulated in the EU. The tool will help increase our speed, accuracy when undertaking PRAs. It is interactive and will increase our efficiency in PRA.”
Read more on the PRA Tool and how it can support your pest risk analysis, here.
How can my organization gain access to the PRA Tool?
To add the PRA Tool to an existing CPC subscription, or to discuss a new subscription to the CPC and PRA Tool, please contact sales@cabi.org.
Gratis access is offered to the National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) of lower income countries. Please contact PRA@cabi.org for further details.