Cost of Plant Introduction - The Expanding Horizons of Crop Diseases

Inadvertent movement of plant pathogens into new ecological regions from their original home creates an alarming signal by causing threat to plant biodiversity. All the historical evidences indicate that the introduction of invasive alien species(IAS) is the major driver behind the appearance of new disease, resurgence and spread of indigenous pathogens and pathotype strain selection which ultimately adds cost to the plant introduction. This calls for designing a suitable policy which can restrain the ingress of pathogens into a new ecological niche through plant introductions. But, considering the enormity of the ecological regimes in India and the dynamics of the international agri-trade policy, plant quarantine regulations would be constrained due to the increased possibilities of the spread of pathogens. Preventive domestic quarantine needs to be considered along with strict Pest Risk Analysis (PRA), so that aggravated risk to ecological biodiversity and cost of plant introduction could be reduced.