Plant Quarantine Interception and Elimination of Exotic Insect Pests in Germplasm Exchange

The accelerated pace of exchange of agricultural commodities in the WTO regime has exposed the world to a grater risk of introducing exotic pests in the clean areas. Management of exotic pests, even below economic threshold level is more difficult than the native pests which are checked by their natural enemies, thus it requires considerable amount of pesticides which leads to environmental pollution and health hazards. Therefore, there is a need for an ecofriendly phytosanitary measure to prevent the introduction of exotic pests. Plant quarantine is such a measure based on the legal enactments. The effectiveness of these measures is highlighted by the fact that during last 15 years, 20,165 samples were made pest free from entomological viewpoint and the significant interceptions were made which if had got introduced would have caused considerable losses to Indian Agriculture.