Safeguarding Biosecurity through Effective Policies and Regional Collaboration in South Asia$

Abstract

Due to the commonality among South Asian countries, effective regional collaborative efforts are needed to deal with all known or perceived agricultural biosecurity threats. This is required to fully utilize the available resources in the region both in terms of infrastructure and expertise. The key areas for collaboration include harmonizing regulations, simplifying quarantine procedures, risk analyses, research and human resource development (HRD). The regulatory cooperation would be for joint deliberation on policy issues. The quarantine procedural collaboration includes identification of expertise/ accredited labs/ post-entry quarantine facilities for testing special crops/ pests in a network mode and countries with contiguous borders could develop programmes for eradication/ declaration of pest free areas to facilitate exports
from the region. Each country also needs to share information on respective surveillance programmes to enable development of common pest risk analyses for crops/ pests of quarantine significance. There is also need to identify areas of collaborative research and HRD and develop programmes based on gap analysis. Database on pest status in countries of the region should be developed in addition to conduct of regular
trainings to strengthen research capabilities.