During the fall and winter of 2005-06 the CLNA is administering a project, funded by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s ACAAF program, which will design a voluntary program for the certification of nurseries wishing to ship product domestically.  The program, called the Domestic Phytosanitary Certification Program (DPCP), will be administered by the newly formed Canadian Nursery Certification Institute (CNCI).  It is to be an industry designed and operated program that is systems based. 

The intention is to create a practical and effective program that utilizes various independent processes on the nursery that together address the phytosanitary status of the plants produced.  Systems to be included in the DPCP design will include such things as pest monitoring and pest management, plant trace back and trace forward, effective record keeping, training and delegation as well as internal and external audits to confirm that these systems are working properly on the nursery. 

Nurseries that wish to participate will use the DPCP Standard to custom design a system that works for their particular operation.  Qualifying nurseries will be certified by the CNCI and will be able to sell qualifying stock as “DPCP Certified”.  A certification stamp or logo will communicate this to your customers.
 
Certification will have its rewards, which will include:

• The ability to sell to a Canadian Nursery Certification Program (CNCP) nursery who could in turn export those plants.
• Enjoy enhanced protection from pest introductions onto the nursery.
• Be much better prepared to address exotic pest problems, quarantines, new plant movement restrictions, and new pest specific certification programs.  DPCP will ensure that you have systems aimed at managing such emergencies operating on the nursery.
• Enhanced reputation for safe plants.

 
The project is moving quite quickly so watch for more news in various industry publications or come back to this site for the latest. Implementation is expected to start in 2006.
 
The core DPCP program will be designed in such a way that individual “pest specific modules” can be added when the need arises for very specific certification for particular pests.  These modules will be incremental to the core DPCP and will specify very specific additional steps that may be appropriate to address the named pest.  By having DPCP working in your operation you can expect to be well positioned to make slight modifications or implement small additional steps to also qualify for the pest specific module in question.

Funding has been provided by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada through their Advancing Agriculture and Agri-Food Program.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) is pleased to participate in this project. AAFC is committed to working with industry partners to increase public awareness of the importance of the agriculture and agri-food industry to Canada. Opinions expressed in this document are those of the Canadian Nursery Certification Institute and not necessarily those of AAFC.