Potato imports from Spain: reducing the risk of Epitrix
Seeking views on plans to introduce laws to protect against introducing the potato pest Epitrix into the UK on potatoes imported from Spain.
We want to know what you think about our proposal to make it compulsory to wash potatoes before they are imported from Spain.
This is to protect against the risk of introducing Epitrix into the UK. A potato pest, Epitrix would be very damaging to our potato industry. The proposed changes in legislation are in response to several cases where we intercepted potatoes damaged by Epitrix from Spain in 2015. The new legislation should be in place before the main period for importing potatoes from Spain starts in 2016, which is from February. This proposal affects those who import, process, trade and grow potatoes.