2 August 2021
Who does this notice affect?
Importers of high-risk plant products and other stakeholders in the import and shipping industries—including vessel masters, freight forwarders, treatment providers, Biosecurity Industry Participants, importers, customs brokers, principal shipping agents, and any other operators in the sea container supply and logistics chain.
What has changed?
Exclusions list
The exclusion list for high-risk plant products on the khapra beetle urgent actions webpage has been updated. The exclusions list of high-risk plant products is relevant to Phases 1 to 3 and Phase 6A part 1. The updated exclusions list of high-risk plant products is available on our webpage.
The following plant products exported on or after 2 August 2021 are no longer considered high-risk:
- Commercially prepared and packaged goods that have been thermally processed so that the nature of the material has been transformed from their original raw form.
- Goods that are commercially milled or ground to a powder, meal or flakes and packaged in bags less than 25kg.
Note: these goods do not require mandatory treatment from khapra beetle target risk countries but commercial consignments will require a phytosanitary certificate verifying freedom from khapra beetle. - Breakfast cereals, instant cereal beverage mixes, couscous meal mixes and snack foods that are commercially prepared and retail packaged. *
- Bakery and bread mixes (including whole seeds) that are commercially prepared and retail packaged. *
- Commercially prepared and packaged herbal teas, with or without seeds (including loose leaf and tea bags).
* An imported good is considered retail packaged if it has been commercially prepared and packaged overseas and is in a final state that requires no further processing, packaging or labelling prior to sale or use in Australia.
Note: The exclusion list for other risk plant products has also been updated. However, this list only applies to Phase 4 of the urgent actions which has been placed on hold.
Provisional alternative treatment options
The purpose of this notification is to advise stakeholders of provisional alternative treatment options available for high-risk plant products under Phase 3 of the khapra beetle urgent actions.
Phase 3 of the urgent actions will commence in September 2021. It will introduce mandatory offshore treatment using an approved option for high-risk plant products exported from a khapra beetle target risk country, via all commercial air and sea pathways.
Approved treatment options are heat treatment and methyl bromide fumigation. We recognise these options are not feasible for some products. As such, we have considered alternative treatment options, including modified atmosphere treatments.
We have published a document on our website detailing alternative treatment options available for high-risk plant products. These options are provisional measures only. Provisional measures are subject to change as further data and information becomes available.
We are engaging with peak industry bodies on the proposed alternative treatment options. Importers and treatment providers interested in using modified atmosphere treatments are encouraged to register their interest via email: offshoretreatments@aff.gov.au.
Videos
For your interest, to support the implementation of the khapra beetle urgent actions, we have developed two short videos to communicate:
- the risks khapra beetle poses to Australia
- how to identify khapra beetle
- the importance of sea container cleanliness
- how to maintain sea container cleanliness.
We encourage you to watch and share the content with your contacts. You can watch the videos here and via the urgent actions webpage:
Further information
For further information, see:
- Urgent actions to protect against khapra beetle (Trogoderma granarium) webpage
- Khapra beetle bulletin
For:
- questions and information related directly to offshore khapra beetle treatments, please email offshoretreatments@aff.gov.au.
- all other enquiries regarding these measures, please phone 1800 900 090 or email imports@aff.gov.au (please title the subject line of the email with ‘Plant Tier 2 – khapra urgent actions’).