Global trade is growing. While this brings many benefits, trade can also spread pests and pathogens that harm agricultural crops and natural environments.
Now, more than ever, we need effective tools to help us manage these biosecurity risks and enable market access.
CSIRO is working with industry and Australian federal and state government partners to strengthen the methods, tools and evidence-base for managing plant pest risks related to trade. Our work on phytosanitary risk science builds on, and contributes to, international research in this field.
We are developing science-based tools that are practical, robust and can be applied to a wide range of biosecurity and market access challenges. Our approach recognises that many activities that happen within production systems and supply chains can be harnessed to reduce biosecurity risks.
With better tools to design and validate phytosanitary risk management systems, we can:
- Expand opportunities for domestic and international trade
- Protect biosecurity in Australia and around the world
- Build confidence amongst trading partners in agreed risk management measures
- Improve harmonisation to reduce the cost and complexity of phytosanitary requirements
Tools for phytosanitary risk assessment and management
This website provides access to scientific principles, methods, decision frameworks and quantitative tools to guide phytosanitary risk management for market access and biosecurity.
Our research contributes to the development, testing and harmonisation of the concepts and methods that underpin phytosanitary risk assessment and management, particularly to:
- Categorise and quantify how individual phytosanitary measures contribute to reducing risks
- Select the best phytosanitary measures to manage pests of concern
- Validate the effectiveness of single measures or combinations of measures, using quantitative models
- Develop comprehensive and rigorous data packages to support proposed market access protocols or other biosecurity regulations
- Bring together data from multiple sources for more advanced analysis to support biosecurity decision-making
The tools can be used to:
- Refine, simplify or more rigorously validate existing phytosanitary measures used to enable trade
- Develop new market access protocols, including phytosanitary systems approaches
- Assess the likely efficacy of protocols proposed in market access applications
- Design rigorous risk management responses for wider biosecurity issues or incursions
Explore these pages to find out more.
Partners and collaborators
Much of our research has been supported through Hort Innovation with co-investment from industry and government partners. The recently completed research project, ‘Developing Systems Approaches to Achieve Market Access for Australian Horticulture’ (AM17001), was funded through the Hort Frontiers Asian Markets fund, part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative developed by Hort Innovation, with co-investment and contributions from the Australian Government, state governments and horticulture industries.
