Risk Assessment

Conducting a risk assessment to identify hazards is a vital component of a systems approach.  This process will identify the facility’s critical control points (CCPs) where best management practices (BMPs) can be implemented to mitigate hazards.

Risk is the likelihood of harm resulting from introduction of plant pests.

Hazards are any area of nursery/greenhouse operations which have the potential to cause harm to the plant products by contamination or introduction of plant pests.

Critical control point (CCP) is any point, step or procedure at which controls can be applied and the hazard prevented, eliminated or reduced to an acceptable level.

Best management practices (BMPs) are those measures which are implemented at a CCP to prevent, eliminate or reduce the risk associated with the specific hazard.

For example:  When plants are brought into a facility, they can introduce pests, so they could be considered a hazard.  A critical control point would be where the plants are received.  A best management practice to mitigate this risk would be to inspect the plants before putting them into the production yard.

It is recommended that the risk assessment be conducted jointly with the facility and the Official Certifying Authority.

To help prepare for the risk assessment, review the SANC CCP Checklist and BMP Companion.

• The checklist portion of this will guide inspectors and growers in identifying CCPs to assess risk in a plant production system.
• The BMP companion section offers basic best management practices that can be used to address identified critical control points in order to reduce pest risk. It is not a complete list of BMPs, but provides a scalable foundation for a systems approach to plant production that can be implemented, documented, verified and tailored to specific situations. A facility may develop a unique best management practice specifically to meet its needs.

Use the Risk Assessment tool to conduct the risk assessment (Excel version available).

Online version of the Risk Assessment tool: https://hriresearch-sanc.org/.