Impact case study database

Introduced pests and invasive species cause over $1 trillion in annual damage worldwide, are a significant barrier to trade, and are second to habitat loss as a cause of global environmental harm. Mumford, Potter and colleagues have developed a series of standards, quantitative models, decision procedures and understanding of ecology, technology and social attitudes that have been adopted by policymakers, regulators and biosecurity risk managers in UN agencies [A, B], EU regulatory bodies [C, D, E], and national authorities [F, G]. Wide engagement by the researchers with policymakers and regulators, internationally and domestically, has demonstrated the importance of pathway-based risk analysis and provided decision makers with an evidence base from which novel quantitative analytical tools and risk communication strategies could be developed and applied to manage existing and emerging biosecurity threats [G]. Mumford’s research on pest risk assessment has informed working groups on which he served to prepare international guidance on use of genetic and radiation-based technologies for pest control (EFSA [H]; WHO/IAEA **[I]**).

Policy impacts

Both Mumford and Potter have been closely involved in development of UK government biosecurity policy [G]. As Chair of Defra’s Non-native Species Risk Analysis Panel, Mumford has been directly involved in advising government on design and implementation of effective biosecurity measures [E, G]; more widely, the UK Minister stated that the process led by Mumford “strongly influenced the EU’s approach, including its risk methodology, when the EU invasive alien species regulation came into force in 2015” [E]. Potter and Mumford were members of Defra’s Tree Health and Plant Biosecurity Task Force, to advise on how to safeguard the country’s trees, woods and forests from invasive pests and diseases [G]. The Taskforce’s recommendations were implemented in full and included creation of a new Plant Health Risk Register, a methodological innovation based on Mumford’s work and launched in 2014, described as “an extremely effective policy innovation which allows the Plant Health Risk Group within Defra to undertake monthly reviews of threats” [G], together with a series of improvements to risk messaging to encourage behavioural changes in horticultural and forestry sectors.

In international standard setting, Mumford’s quantitative, pathways-based modelling has been used to justify new standards and procedures for biosecurity and has been adopted by implementing agencies (EFSA) [D, C], (Defra) [G] and by international standard setting bodies (IPPC, WTO) [A, B]. Mumford provided technical direction to the evaluation of the European Plant Health regime [J] that led to pathway risk analysis being included as a key platform for biosecurity risk management in the EU Plant Health Regulation (2016), implemented in 2019 [B]. Mumford led the design for a prototype quantitative pathway analysis tool for pathway risk analysis for the European Food Safety Authority [D, C], which oversees all fresh produce imports into the EU, worth over €20bn in 2019. With support from the Standards and Trade Development Facility (WTO), Mumford and colleagues developed a pathway-based production chain management system for South East Asian markets. It was adopted by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, a crucial factor assisting these developing economies to negotiate trade agreements to export food commodities that satisfy international IPPC phytosanitary requirements [K, A].

Specific commercial impact

Improved risk management facilitates horticultural trade, with significant and well documented economic benefits for producers in the global south, such as in India on mango [L, M]. For instance, Mumford’s area-wide bait, trap and area-wide approach to fruit flies in India was used in a government scheme on mango fruit fly control to shift from production of low-price pulp and juice markets to higher value fresh fruit sales for mango on tens of thousands of farms [L]. This area-wide fruit fly control in southern India has increased mango yields three-fold and moved from $0.10/kg pulp sales to $1.00/kg fresh fruit sales. This has increased farm gate values by $700 million/year and “transformed the incomes, and the lives, of many rural families” as the “ total annual value of mango production in India increased in value by US$ 3.5 billion for 2013-2019” [M]. Area-wide fruit management using sterile insects (SIT), in a scheme built on Mumford’s concepts, has “ supported export of around $200 million from Brazil in 2018” [B].

Pest risk analysis has been applied to new agricultural commodity trade pathways under the revised EU Plant Health regulations from 2019 [B, following recommendation in J]. New and changing trade pathways, particularly for €30bn/yr horticultural commodities, are subject to pest risk analysis and resulting pest management measures driven by approaches developed by Mumford, Potter and colleagues [B, G].