Alerts

The purpose of this notification is to advise stakeholders that the khapra beetle urgent actions webpage has been updated, and to provide further detail on the new requirements for high-risk plant products that are expected to commence in September 2021.

Khapra beetle is Australia’s number two National Priority Plant Pest (2019). It is not present in Australia and poses a major threat to Australia’s grains, rice and nut industries through production losses and potential impacts on international trade.

Who does this alert affect:
Importers of high-risk plant products and other stakeholders in the import and shipping industries—including vessel masters, freight forwarders, treatment providers, Biosecurity Industry Participants, importers, customs brokers, principal shipping agents, and any other operators in the sea container supply and logistics chain.

What’s the change?

Khapra beetle webpage updates
The khapra beetle urgent actions webpage has been restructured to improve readability. An overview of these actions and the risk of khapra beetle is available via the original webpage, with further detail on each phase now available via the following sub-pages:

New requirements for high-risk plant products
As advised in an earlier BICON alert, new requirements for high-risk plant products imported via air freight and sea freight are expected to commence in September 2021. Additional information on these requirements has been published on our webpage. A summary of the new information is outlined in the below tables.

Khapra beetle target risk countries
High-risk plant products exported from a khapra beetle target risk country will be required to be treated offshore in accordance with the below requirements.

All other countries
High-risk plant products exported from all other countries (i.e., countries that are not a khapra beetle target risk country) will be required to be inspected offshore and accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate. The phytosanitary certificate must include an additional khapra beetle declaration.

Linkage to khapra beetle requirements for sea containers
The requirements for high-risk plant products that are expected to commence in September 2021 are in addition to the existing khapra beetle requirements for sea containers.

This will mean that if high-risk plant products are exported in an FCL/FCX sea container from a khapra beetle target risk country, both the plant products and the sea container itself will require offshore treatment. Unless using methyl bromide, the sea container must be treated when empty (i.e. before goods are packed into the container).

Import conditions and permits:
BICON import conditions and associated import permits for impacted goods will be amended to incorporate the revised conditions.

The department will also notify import permit holders to initiate a variation to conditions of affected import permits.

Further information
For further information, see:

• urgent actions to protect against khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium)
• sea container measures to protect against khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium)
• khapra beetle bulletin.

For:

• Questions and information related directly to offshore khapra beetle treatments, please email offshoretreatments@agriculture.gov.au.
• All other enquiries regarding these measures, please phone 1800 900 090 or email imports@awe.gov.au (please title the subject line of the email with ‘Plant Tier 2 – khapra urgent actions’).