COMMENTARY BY MATT DOLAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF NZPPI
New Zealand’s plant industries are considered world-class. A key driver of this success has been our ability to trade plant material across borders, bringing in elite genetics, putting them to work here, and sending them back out again as exports.
Our biosecurity system is also considered world-class. It has kept out many devastating diseases and pests that have wreaked havoc overseas. There are many factors that help this, including the significant investment, expertise and vigilance built into it.
In New Zealand, plant producers are among the key importers of plant material. They think years, even decades ahead, and have played a critical role in building many of the successful plants industries we benefit from today. Many of the varieties that underpin our multi-billion dollar greenlife, horticulture and viticulture industries were once imported by plant producers. Yet, increasingly, they are reporting that the system has become unworkable, unpredictable and uneconomic.
Quarantine and testing costs have skyrocketed - in some cases up threefold in the past two years. New rules have seen an increase in testing, declarations, delays, indecision and failing on minor technicalities. The costs of these problems are falling on individual importers, and they are significant.
The result of these increasing problems is already being seen in a slowdown in the flow of new plant material into the country. Where importers may have once routinely brought in five or ten varieties to find the one or two winners, now they may bring in just a couple, or in many cases none at all. That means fewer opportunities to access new genetics.
This is not necessarily top of mind for growers and retailers today, and we may be able to coast for a while yet before we see the impact. But delays in imports now can't be caught up quickly in the future. There is already a gap and if this slow down continues, the pipeline of new material will start to dry up.
Only a handful of businesses and individuals have the vision, patience and resources to import plant material. It’s a specialist task and it can take years, sometimes a decade or more to source and commercialise a new plant variety. But when they succeed, the payoff is immense: fuelling research, creating new industries and markets, boosting exports and improving where we live.
We are right to carefully calculate the risks and costs of a biosecurity incursion. Nobody, least of all plant producers, wants to be responsible for a crisis.
If the plant imports system stalls, it can't be restarted quickly. Overseas breeding programmes are continually releasing new and better plant material. If we continue to close ourselves off, we widen the gap between what is available globally and what we can access. The longer we delay, the bigger that gap becomes.
Absolutely, biosecurity is critical, but there is another risk we are ignoring: the cost of shutting the door too tightly. Increasing the rules only improves protection to a point. After that it can go too far and become a constraint with little added benefit. In many cases we have already passed that point.
It's time to listen to the concerns raised by importers. They are saying that there is now a trade-off and industry and government need to tally the future cost so they can sensibly rethink and reset the system.
We rely on plant producers to think years ahead and invest in bringing in new plant material. At the moment it feels like it is taken for granted that they will continue to do this despite the barriers and costs. Right now, they are speaking up and we should be listening.
If we want to keep restricting and adding costs to imports, let’s do so with our eyes open knowing exactly what we are giving up, and what it could cost New Zealanders and our plants industries in the future.