Canadian Food Inspection Agency Science Symposium

As a representative of CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences and the Cooperative Research Centre for National Plant Biosecurity (CRCPNB) project Communicating Uncertainties in Biosecurity Adaption (CRC10162), David Cook travelled to Ontario to take up an invitation to present at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Science Symposium entitled Better Models - Better Assessments: The Use of Models in Plant Health and Biotechnology Risk Assessment. This symposium was hosted by the CFIA’s Plant and Biotechnology Risk Assessment Unit, and took place at the Lord Elgin hotel in Ottawa on 22-23 February 2011.

The two-day meeting presented an excellent opportunity to discuss the work being done by the CRCNPB with respect to the assessment and communication of risk to diverse government and community stakeholders. The paper David presented was well received, and during the panel session that followed he was pleasantly surprised by the interest shown in the research ideas he presented. Particular interest in the discussion and subsequent informal conversations surrounded the engagement of industry and government stakeholders in the risk analysis process via group decision-making methods, or structured decision-making.

Although the mixture of other invited presentations was diverse, David found the overall quality of presentations very high. He found the papers by Dr Denys Yemshanov (Natural Resources Canada - Canadian Forest Service), Prof. Mike Wilkinson (University of Aberystwyth) and Dr Scott Ferson (Applied Biomathematics) highly interesting and informative. David has heard Dr Ferson speak on a number of occasions and was delighted to have the opportunity to meet him after the session to discuss opinions of risk analysis involving quantitative methods. David discovered that they are both very interested in the way that uncertainty can invoke changes in the behaviour or preferences of a decision-making group, and undertook to further discussions subsequently with the view of collaborating on future research in this area.

Other presentations of note were presented by Dr Paul De Barro (CSIRO) regarding the dynamics and evolution of research projects from inception to delivery; Dr Phil McDonald (CFIA) who outlined the very effective risk assessment procedures in place in Canada and cooperation of stakeholder industries in maximising the benefits over time of biotechnologies; and Prof. Richard Mack (Washington State University) who outlined a multi-tiered nested sieve approach to weed risk assessment involving pre- and post-border components to reduce uncertainties involved in using traditional weed risk assessment approaches based on expert opinion. David said it was a pleasure to have the opportunity to meet Prof. Mack whose work he has admired and used extensively throughout his career.