45th NAPPO Annual Meeting

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45th NAPPO Final Report

Dear NAPPO stakeholders,

Hello from the NAPPO Secretariat and thanks so very much for joining us last week for the 45 ^th NAPPO Annual Meeting (AM). I hope that, like us, you enjoyed our second, and hopefully last, virtual NAPPO AM, hosted – from Oct. 18-20 - by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

Even though overall attendance was down from our totals in 2021 – see graphs below –, the meeting platform brought together just north of 350 registered participants from about 19 countries representing numerous National Plant Protection Organizations (NPPOs) and other Federal levels, State, and Provincial government agencies, Regional and International Plant Protection Organizations, Universities, and a diverse group of industry stakeholders representing diverse commodity sectors – from horticulture to seeds to fruits, vegetables, and grains, to wood products and commercially available biological control agents, among others.

We’d like to acknowledge and thank the Honourable Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Mme. Marie-Claude Bibeau and Mr. Jean-Guy Forgeron, Executive Vice President of the CFIA, for officially opening the AM. Their remarks on the importance of NAPPO as a regional organization for the harmonization of plant health initiatives in North America were much appreciated and set the stage for the rest of the meeting.

We hope you enjoyed the country reports from our three NAPPO member NPPOs. We trust that the information shared by Steve Cote (Canada), Dr. Mark Davidson (U.S.), and Francisco Ramirez y Ramirez (Mexico) informed the industry discussions as well as the combined government-industry meetings held on Tuesday afternoon. It was fantastic to have an International report from Dr. Osama El-Lissy, Secretary of the IPPC, on the status and initiatives at the IPPC level now that their Strategic Framework (2020-2030) is progressing toward phased implementation of its eight Development Agendas.

The Wednesday Symposium on The impacts of climate change on plant health received many kudos from registered participants! We are indeed very fortunate in NAPPO to have such knowledgeable, dedicated, and eloquent speakers in our member countries – both industry and governments! In addition, this year we were lucky to have Professoressa Maria Lodovica Gullino delivering the keynote speech on the IPPC Study on Climate Change to kick things off for the Symposium.

We hoped you enjoyed listening to the progress reports from our fantastic and dedicated NAPPO Expert Groups. The experts from industry, government, and academia that form our Expert Groups are the machinery that keeps our projects moving forward - on time and with excellence! Kudos to all of them for a job well done!

In closing, we kindly remind all our meeting participants to please complete the post-meeting survey by November 4th. Please give kudos where it is deserved but, most importantly, provide us with suggestions of what/where we can improve so we can make the 2023 46 ^th NAPPO Annual Meeting scheduled for early December in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, an event to remember!