Plant Health Guide: passporting and marketing requirements

Issuing the plant passport/supplier document

SE does not issue a standard plant passport. Instead, certain information must appear on your usual trade documents. The SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit can advise on the best way of incorporating the required information into your system. Some EC Member States use a standardised plant passport but all Member States accept our non-standard ones. Information on those plants and plant products that require a plant passport are set out in Appendices A-D.

The information in Appendix H must appear (in capital letters, if in manuscript) on the plant passport:

You may choose which one of the following three options you prefer when issuing plant passports:

• all of the information detailed in Appendix H may appear on a delivery note or other document travelling with the consignment. This is the simplest option for many suppliers

• passporting information may be split between labels attached to the plants or plant products and the delivery note or other document accompanying the consignment. In this case, full details (see Appendix H) must still appear on the delivery note or accompanying document while a shorter list (those listed at i-v of Appendix H) can also appear on labels

• all the details given at Appendix H may appear on labels attached to the plants, plant products or their packaging, without appearing on a delivery note or accompanying document. If you choose this option, there must be at least one label for each "tradable unit" (that is, plants of the same variety, grown in the same lot, by the same producer and destined for the same customer). The SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit can advise. You must keep a record of all plant passports issued

Passporting details may appear on the same delivery note (or other document) as information on non-passported items. The passporting elements must, however, be clearly identifiable. For example, if a delivery consists of Malus and Cotoneaster (which require passports), and Rosa (which does not), information on all three items may be listed on the same document. However, passported stock must be easily distinguished from the rest, for example, by adding a 'P', 'PP' or an asterisk. The SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit can advise on how best to incorporate passport details on your usual trade documents and an example is included at Appendix I.

Passporting details are required regardless of the size of the consignment. For example, if a delivery consists of just one Citrus plant together with any number of non-passportable items, the details at Appendix H must still appear on a label as described above.

Plants sent to EC Protected Zones (see the section on 'Plant Passports and Protected Zones' and Appendix D) may require a plant passport even if they are for retail sale, landscaping or your own domestic use. We would advise plant passporting all such plants going to a protected zone. Private householders who are moving house to another member state and intending to take plants with them are advised to contact the SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit to check whether they need to comply with any protected zone requirements. There may also be special requirements for commercial growers. For example, commercial growers wishing to send plants which are fireblight hosts to the Irish Republic, Northern Ireland, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands must have their nurseries registered as being within fireblight "Buffer Zones". If you wish to send plants or plant products to an EC Protected Zone, please contact the SERPID Horticulture and Marketing Unit for further advice.

For any type of ornamental plant propagating material and the fruit and vegetable plants (and fruit seeds) listed in Appendices E and F additional supplier documentation requirements apply, as outlined in Appendix H. However, in practice a single document is usually used for both purposes, with the plant passport being adapted to incorporate any additional details required. Please note that:

• the supplier document requirements for ornamental propagating material apply at all stages of marketing, except retail sales

• even though it is only growers who must be authorised in relation to the fruit and vegetable plants (and fruit seeds) listed in Appendices E and F, the requirements on supplier documentation apply whenever such material is marketed, except retail sales; in addition, small producers of such material, all of whose production and sales are for the local market, do not need to issue supplier documents at any stage