our pest agreement with professional experts

our pest agreement with professional experts

Maximizing the Benefits of Pest Agreements with Professional Experts

1. Introduction to Pest Agreements and Professional Experts

We find ourselves today considering the opportunities that professional pest management experts offer to assist in the development of significant, welfare-increasing international and regional legal frameworks that we call pest agreements. The especially notable recent round of negotiations brings forth a special need for expertise: making these obligations operational in the economies of developing countries. Legal expertise and even political economy analysis of the establishment of international standards by the WTO have shone a bright light, but political expertise must also be brought in to make alternative requirement options operational. The establishment of international standards within single pest agreements is but the first ray of sunlight in today’s discussion.

Our contribution also has a significant issue with using politically attractive concepts – most testing can be less expensive and performed just as well in trading partners’ well-calibrated laboratories. Many of the participants in these trading partner discussions are or are sponsored by CAPS CTDs. Since these are public-private partnerships, the extension of these efforts further into public facilities would not be inconsistent. At that point, we have a very direct conflict of interest issue.

2. Key Components of an Effective Pest Agreement

Effective pest agreements require the following key components: access to professional expertise in plant quarantine/insect pest control; review of existing quarantine practices; development of statistically based, science-supported pest risk models; agreement on pesticide MRLs between importing and exporting countries prior to initiating the pest agreement process; and the inclusion of a facilitated process for the resolution of non-compliance issues that arise during the agreement. Research on new pest control technologies should be included when existing pesticidal tools provide insufficient control of listed pests. The development of a well-documented, predictive, facilitated trade system with transparent reporting procedures and a follow-up period for resolving any issues would both incent international joint research into risk and responsive measures and minimize the reputational risks that trading partners would face as a result of trade disruptions due to administrative or technical disagreements.

To facilitate agreements among different trading interests, willingness to fund commodity-specific pest agreements should be identified at the level of political oversight. Given the potential benefits that can ensue from an effective commodity-specific pest agreement, government should consider making investments to support coordinated national IPM programs. Current commodity-specific pest agreement protocols do not guarantee that the benefits of trade to the U.S. and the partner country are realized. Promoting accurate completion of pest agreement models, especially pest risk and mitigation issues, based on scientifically-developed models, is a means to ensure that. This effort should be linked with high-priority, trade-sensitive wheat, fruits and vegetables, seeds, timber, exotic wood borers, grain storage structure pests, and crop pollinators.

3. Benefits of Partnering with Professional Pest Experts

Professional pest experts have identified many benefits to partnering with a government agency. These include: access to areas and facilities where pests might be introduced and established at a research station; provided pest concerns are legitimate, experts will not need permission to work in areas of concern; early involvement in serious pest incidents leading to effective containment and control work; and limitation of damage to stakeholders.

Some pest experts saw the development of Pest Agreements as an opportunity to dismantle barriers and roadblocks in the Kinder Suppression Program. Others saw the kind of partnership created as a model for future partnerships with other government and non-government agencies. Although some saw Pest Agreements as beneficial and good, others noted that different or additional conditions would also have to be satisfied. The overall cost of managing pests may escalate as a number of incidents could have resulted in a better outcome if the regulations had different stipulations and provided different states of engagement. While the general avoidance of direct or indirect costs was seen as a benefit, individual incidents were not.

4. Case Studies and Real-Life Examples

The complexity and great economic and social significance of quarantine pests in international trade have been reflected in a rapid increase in the number of PIC agreements signed between different countries. Unfortunately, only in very few cases have agreements existed in practical terms rather than on paper. There is, of course, nothing strange or new about this. It is simply that nature being what it is, professionals in implementing infusorial decisions act as if contracts can be changed at their convenience when it suits their economic needs. All of the above comments pertain just as well to many other aspects of international economic negotiations that are carried on by technically trained experts who are usually present at the initiation of a PIC agreement.

Typically, the manner in which an operative agreement resulting from negotiations of a quarantine type is established is that it is based upon technical numerical values that have been supplied by researchers in experimental laboratories located in the countries involved in the negotiation. Because these laboratory researchers are the ‘contract lawyers’ who define agreements, only they can sign agreements in practice rather than on paper.

5. Best Practices for Establishing and Maintaining Successful Pest Agreements

Maximizing the benefits of pest agreements with professional experts

Pest agreements with professional experts can provide decision makers with important information and advice. To ensure that such agreements are as successful and cost-effective as possible, public decision makers need to establish and maintain these pest agreements in an effective manner. This guide details the steps that public decision makers should take to establish and manage pest agreements with professional experts.

Fostering a successful pest-business agreement To maximize the benefits derived from entering formal consultative arrangements with professional experts and the efficacy of the processes and decisions made, public entities should ensure that pest-business agreements are established and maintained in a professional and strategic manner. Agencies should develop and maintain pest-business agreements in a managed, adaptive, and focused manner. Public entities should develop and publish policy documents that guide pest business agreements. These documents should outline the processes for creating pest business agreements, including articulating how and when expert input will be used in the policy decision-making process; the criteria for expert qualifications or other terms and conditions that must be met by experts hired to provide assistance to public decision-making processes; the analytical and administrative processes and resources required to obtain expert input; and the standards and criteria to which non-regulatory agencies, organizations, and entities soliciting and purchasing expert consultation services should adhere.