Biosecurity

The Western Australia apple and pear industry faces on-going biosecurity issues that challenge orchard profitability and access to national and international markets.

The Western Australian industry via Pomewest has adopted a pro-active approach to protecting the industry by implementing a Biosecurity Fee for Service Levy (BFFSL) under the Agricultural Produce Commission Act 1988. The BFFSL rate is presently set at $0.002 per kilogram on all fresh pome fruit and $0.001 per kilogram on all processed pome fruit. The BFFSL commenced on 1 January 2015.

A draft WA Pome Fruit Biosecurity Strategic Plan has been developed as a requirement of the BSL as stipulated by the Western Australian Agricultural Produce Commission (APC) in November 2014. This will be updated and stay in a draft format at this stage.

The draft WA Pome Fruit Biosecurity Strategic Plan is a two part document. The first part of the plan outlines existing national biosecurity requirements and the second part of the document details the WA Pome Fruit Biosecurity Strategic Plan and the priorities and strategies required to ensure the WA pome fruit industry is protected from the impact of invasive plant pests and disease and market access is maintained.

The WA Pome Fruit Biosecurity Strategic Plan is based on five foundation strategies: to maintain the industry biosecurity committee; to protect industry against exotic pests and disease; to address threats from established pests in Australia but not present in Western Australia; to manage established pests of quarantine concern and to strengthen property and orchard biosecurity.

Find out more, read our current Draft Biosecurity Strategic Plan 2015-2020