Interceptions of harmful organisms during import inspections of cut flowers in the Netherlands: an empirical and theoretical analysis of the ‘reduced checks’ system *

As of January 1st 2005, a system of reduced checks for phytosanitary inspections of certain plants and plant products imported into the European Union (EU) is in place. Under this system, plants and plant products satisfying special criteria may be inspected with a reduced frequency. These criteria are based on EU‐wide data on historical volumes of import and interceptions of harmful organisms in particular products. The objective of this paper is two‐fold. Firstly, the paper analyses whether proportions of interceptions of harmful organisms associated with cut flowers imported into the Netherlands – the largest EU importer of cut flowers – support the application of reduced checks for certain genera and trades (commodity‐exporting country combinations) of cut flowers. Secondly, the paper analyses how effective the reduced checks system is in minimizing the expected costs of introduction of harmful organisms in the EU. For that, a theoretically optimal system for allocating inspection effort to commodities is described. Using an illustrative example and stochastic simulations, the expected costs of introduction of harmful organisms under the theoretically optimal system and the current system of reduced checks are compared. Examination of interceptions of harmful organisms supports application of reduced checks for most genera and trades of cut flowers in the Netherlands. The results of stochastic simulations show that reduced checks may not minimize the expected costs of introduction of harmful organisms into the EU. Accounting for possible economic impacts of harmful organisms in determining the frequencies of reduced checks may help optimize the current system.