US and India Collaborate on Plant Health Management

On September 2, the United States Government launched the first collaborative international training course on Plant Pest Risk Analysis (PRA) in collaboration with the National Institute of Plant Health Management (NIPHM) - an autonomous training institute under the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India.

PRA is an evolving and dynamic field in agricultural science and regulatory plant protection. The field examines and identifies plant pests associated with a commodity for export and outlines specific measures to mitigate the pest risk for importing countries.

Thirty-five participants from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, and Tajikistan will be trained by NIPHM faculty and experts from the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Center of Plant Health Science and Technology on the legal and regulatory framework that supports and guides the application of PRA, nationally and internationally.

The course, offered from September 2-6, 2013 at the NIPHM campus in Hyderabad, is part of the collaboration between the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and USDA to jointly develop training programs that promote science based plant health management.

The collaboration will help NIPHM grow as a globally recognized center for excellence in the area of plant health management to address regional and global training needs.