Buying Plant Healthy

Overview

• This research is funded by Defra's Future Proofing Plant Health programme. This supports research that will contribute to protecting plant health by providing evidence, knowledge, tools and solutions for Plant Health Policy as well as other beneficiaries. The 'National Conversation on Plant Health' project responds to the programme's Plant Health Behaviours theme, which focuses on understanding what motivates and constrains individuals and groups to change their behaviour in support of positive outcomes for plant health, overcoming the knowledge to action gap and improving our understanding of the social and cultural values of plants. • Plant health is a policy priority for the UK Government, Scottish Government and Welsh Government. The project responds to the Plant Biosecurity Strategy for Great Britain (2023-2028) , which aims to protect Great Britain's plants by encouraging and enabling the government, industry and the public to work together to reduce and manage biosecurity risks from plant pests and pathogens, and to facilitate safe trade. This strategic vision is supported by four outcomes, two of which are directly relevant to this research: o Outcome 2: a society that values healthy plants, where everyone feels part of a national biosecurity culture and people take extra care when buying plants. Related activities set out in the strategy include raising awareness of the importance of healthy plants and trees and encouraging the adoption of responsible behaviours across society. The Strategy specifically mentions the 'National Conversation on Plant Health' project in its description of how it will deliver against this outcome. o Outcome 3: a biosecure plant supply chain, where Government and industry works in partnership to support this. The Strategy specifically mentions both promotion and encouraging uptake of the Plant Healthy Certification Scheme as a means of achieving this.