Lesson 3: Evaluating and Selecting Options

Topic 2: Evaluate Feasibility of Measures

In this topic, you will see that a highly effective phytosanitary action is not always the most feasible option. When choosing phytosanitary actions, you will need to consider how easy the actions will be to implement and maintain.

Objective:

Be able to define the following terms: technical feasibility, economic feasibility and operational feasibility.

“Feasibility” refers to how easily a measure can be implemented. A measure may be highly effective, but impractical to put into practice. There are three types of feasibility: technical, economic, and operational. When you evaluate technical feasibility, you look at the technical requirements of an option and compare them to the technical capability of the organization. When you evaluate economic feasibility, you examine the cost of an option to see if it is cost effective and if the necessary resources are available. In evaluating operational feasibility, you determine the willingness of each trading partner to support the option.

The following are factors to consider when determining feasibility.

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This chart shows the treatment options you identified for the Alphina and Zedinia example. Using the chart, can you determine the most feasible treatment option? (Remember, for this example you need at least 85% efficacy.)

Phytosanitary Measure	Efficacy	Relative Cost	Technical Feasibility	Operational Feasibility
In transit cold treatment	85%	Average	Widely Available Citrus Tolerant Non-toxic	Alphina has been using cold treatment on citrus for many years.
Packing house culling	80%	Low	Widely Available Citrus Tolerant Non-toxic	Alphina packing house workers are well trained to cull damaged fruit.
Port of entry inspection	60%	High	Not enough inspectors Citrus Tolerant Non-toxic	Alphina does not have means to increase their number of inspectors.
Irradiation	99%	Average	Limited availability Citrus Tolerant Non-toxic	Alphina is interested in expanding irradiation treatments. Zedinia consumers are willing to eat irradiated fruit.
Certified field management practices	75%	Low	Not widely known Citrus Tolerant Non-toxic	Alphina producers want to use certified field management practices, but they have not begun yet.
Early harvest (fruit not quite ripe)	55%	Low	Widely Available Low quality Citrus Non-toxic	Consumer demand is low for under ripe citrus.
Methyl bromide fumigation	90%	Average	Not available Citrus Tolerant Toxic	Methyl bromide is banned in Alphina.
Area of low pest prevalence	70%	High	Does not currently exist Citrus Tolerant Non-Toxic	Aphina does not have the ability to create an area of low pest prevalence at this time.

Do you see the compromises that must be made? According to this chart, your best treatment option is in-transit cold treatment. It is not the most effective, but it is effective enough and it is feasible in every way for Alphina to comply with the mitigation. Another good option will be irradiation. However, Alphina is not quite ready to irradiate all citrus exports yet.

To continue, select Topic 3 from the Topics menu above or click here.