The Facility SANC Manual is created by the facility and once completed it will be reviewed by the Official Certifying Authority for approval. The Manual has four components to describe facility processes to manage the risk of plant pest introduction and movement.
- Pest Management Plan
The facility will develop a pest management plan to address the critical control points which were identified in the risk assessment. At least two independent best management practices will be documented to mitigate the risk from each critical control point. This will include procedures for scouting, record keeping, and reporting regulated pest detections. - Staff and Facility
This section of the Manual will describe the facility and activities of staff as it relates to SANC. Topics in this section include responsibilities of staff members, the staff reporting oversight structure, the staff training plan and the facility description. - Audits
The Manual will describe how and when audits will be conducted. - Documentation
The Manual will describe what documents must be kept. These records include scouting, sampling/testing and pest control records, plant receiving and shipping records, training records and audit records.
Building Your Facility SANC Manual
Use Facility SANC Manual examples, templates and tools to develop and ensure that your Manual is in compliance with the SANC Standard. The SANC Standard requires that the Manual include the pest management plan, a statement of SANC policy and resources, a statement about management of SANC at the facility, a facility description, the staff and training associated with maintaining the SANC Standard, traceability and record keeping, and document requirements and control.
Review an Example of a Facility SANC Manual (pdf).
Review State Summaries of Plant Protection Laws and Regulations and the Japanese Beetle Harmonization Plan to determine if there are additional plant shipping requirements for receiving states. The Official Certifying Authority has familiarity with these requirements and they should be contacted for their expertise in the review process. Where there are specific pest requirements in place, these may be met by inclusion of a state-approved compliance agreement. Compliance agreement templates encourage increased consistency and highlight the systems approaches being utilized within the certification process for shipping plants interstate. These templates can be adjusted to meet the needs of specific nursery greenhouse pest issues and regulations. These templates include:
- Nursery/Greenhouse Compliance Agreement Template (docx)
- Boxwood Blight Compliance Agreement Template (doc)
- Japanese Beetle Compliance Agreement Template (docx)
- Imported Fire Ant Compliance Agreement Template (docx)
Use the Building Your Facility SANC Manual Workbook (xlsx) to develop and implement a system to meet the SANC Standard, to document the system, verify the processes of the system and audit/improve the system. Each tab in the workbook provides instructions for these seven SANC Standards. (Note: there are four tabs for the pest management plan (3.2, 3.2.4a, 3.2.6 and 3.2.9).
Use the Facility SANC Manual Review and Approval Checklist (pdf) to verify that your developed Manual is compliant with the SANC Standard.
Proceed to Step #5: Checks and Audits
