Major plant epidemic control strengthened to fully safeguard agricultural production safety
Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture held a national on-site meeting on interception and control of major plant epidemics in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province, summarizing and exchanging the achievements and experience of plant quarantine during the “12th Five-Year Plan”, deeply analyzing the current situation facing plant epidemics, and researching and deploying plant quarantine work for the “13th Five-Year Plan”.
The meeting held that over the past five years, plant quarantine work has achieved remarkable results: monitoring detected a number of newly introduced agricultural plant epidemics such as the beet cyst nematode, successfully intercepted the spread and proliferation of a number of major plant epidemics such as the Colorado potato beetle, effectively controlled the occurrence and harm of a number of major plant epidemics such as the codling moth, and completely eradicated a number of newly emerging or sporadically occurring major plant epidemics such as the banana burrowing nematode.
⟦NL> The meeting pointed out that, in accordance with the overall requirements of “comprehensive measures and addressing both root causes and symptoms”, efforts should focus on strengthening monitoring and investigation, interception and control, and quarantine supervision, and accelerating the promotion of the “four transformations” in epidemic prevention and control work, namely: the transformation of the prevention and control entity from territorial management to placing equal emphasis on “territorial responsibility and regional collaboration”; the transformation of the prevention and control focus from newly introduced areas to joint prevention and joint control of “introduced areas, interception zones, and source areas”; the transformation of the prevention and control method from segment-by-segment governance to comprehensive whole-process governance of “epidemic area control, checkpoint interception, quarantine supervision, and emergency response”; and the transformation of quarantine law enforcement from conventional enforcement to a combination of “routine enforcement, joint enforcement, and special enforcement”. Efforts should strive to achieve by the end of the “13th Five-Year Plan” the goal that “newly emerging epidemics do not rapidly spread and cause harm, existing epidemics do not break out into disasters, and sporadic epidemics are basically eradicated”.
The meeting required that agricultural departments and plant quarantine institutions at all levels clarify goals, increase investment, strengthen measures, and effectively curb the spread and harm of major epidemics. First, strengthen epidemic monitoring and investigation. Build a nationwide epidemic monitoring network system, develop and equip modern monitoring facilities and equipment, accelerate the construction of quarantine informatization systems, and achieve early detection, early reporting, and early response. Second, implement zoned epidemic management. Build 100 national epidemic prevention and control demonstration zones in newly affected areas, severely affected areas, and key interception corridors, assemble and integrate key technical models for prevention and control, and improve the scientific nature and effectiveness of prevention and control. Third, promote innovation in quarantine supervision. Highlight seedling quarantine, transport quarantine, and market supervision, implement unified national numbering of plant quarantine certificates, increase verification efforts, and make violation information public. Fourth, strengthen scientific and technological support. Establish a plant quarantine expert guidance group, carry out research on key technologies for harm mechanisms, blockade and eradication, disinfection and disposal, and comprehensive management, and accelerate the transformation of practical results. At the same time, strive to win support from multiple parties, improve quarantine support policies, strengthen domestic and international quarantine cooperation, consolidate the institutional and team foundation, and promote sustainable management of agricultural plant epidemics.