07/14/06 Potatoes and NAPPO

Farm and Ranch July 14, 2006 Sometimes the best offense is a good defense and you could say that was what Matt Harris, Director of Trade for the Washington State Potato Commission, was doing at a recent meeting of the North American Plant Protection Organization, or NAPPO, held in Prince Edward Island Canada. NAPPO is a regional plant health organization dedicated to protecting the phytosanitary security of plants in North America while also promoting trade. It includes the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Harris says the potato panel portion of the meeting was working on the adoption of something called Appendix 8. Harris: "And what Appendix 8 is, it seeks to create criteria for establishing pest free zones for certain potato pests. So as the U.S. industry attended this meeting, I guess we were there with caution to make sure that when this appendix is implemented is doesn't restrict trade. So the focus of this meeting was to review this appendix." It is expected the Appendix will take several years to complete, but the pests listed in the draft were reduced from eight possible pests to three; the golden nematode, potato spindle tuber viroid and bacterial ring rot. That's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today! Good health tomorrow! I'm Bob Hoff on the Northwest Ag Information Network.