Plants are the foundation of all life on earth, providing more than 80% of our food. We, the G20 Agriculture Ministers, reaffirm the importance of plant health, welcome the UN adoption of the resolution on the International Year of Plant Health, 2020, and encourage continuation of our efforts to ensure plant health for a viable and sustainable agro-food sector, food safety and security, ecosystem functions and sustaining all life on earth, with the following observation and actions.
We encourage strengthening regional and international collaboration to find solutions necessary for ensuring plant health. Such collaboration may include information and knowledge exchange on the status of plant pests such as the occurrence, outbreak or spread of plant pests and on effective measures against them such as diagnostic, monitoring and surveillance technologies, as well as measures for prevention and control.
We acknowledge the importance of promoting research for plant health. Expecting continuous contribution from the research sector on addressing transboundary plant pests, we welcome suggestion from the MACS to:
encourage networks by diagnostic laboratories and research institutes and other voluntary interactions,
encourage research cooperation among interested members on some targeted transboundary plant pests,
hold a workshop to facilitate research collaboration.
We emphasize the importance of harmonized phytosanitary measures, on the basis of international standards, guidelines and recommendations developed by relevant international organizations, or assessment of risk as appropriate to the circumstances, without requiring members to change their appropriate level of protection of plant health, in order to prevent trans-border outbreak and spread of plant pests. In seeking further regional and international collaboration, we encourage members to participate in harmonized electronic phytosanitary certification (ePhyto) systems developed by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC).
In order to raise awareness for plant health, we encourage members' active engagement in outreach and capacity development for all stakeholders in collaboration with international organizations such as the IPPC, FAO, and CGIAR, taking full advantage of the opportunity of IYPH2020 and also encourage members to initiate and support collaborative plant health research activities. In this regard, we welcome an IPPC symposium on plant health in autumn 2019 in Japan, with the coordination of members, toward IYPH2020.
