Towards uniform European Quality Standards

 

 

One of the surest ways to develop the nursery market in Europe is to make trading easier within the community. The E.N.A. (European Nurserystock Association) was created to fulfil this need. During its initial meeting, the Association decided to take on the task of establishing simple, universally acknowledged European standards.

 

The idea behind this is to define a common language for a standard, fair, honest, average quality. It will be up to indivi¬dual busines¬ses to apply their own more rigorous standards, using these as a basis, should they wish to do so.

 

First and foremost, it is a matter of facilitating, and therefore increasing, business dealings between professionals from different countries. After that, nurserymen will be able to decide whether they wish to use their national federations, via the intermediary of the ENA, to take matters further, for example by applying for these standards to be officially adopted for the attribution of public spending within the European Community.

 

This very important task of harmonisation has been successfully carried out thanks to the personal input of several European specialists and European nurserymen. These standards are a synthesis of work, carried out in 1990, early 1996 and 2009. For the past ten years ENA kept on leading the charge to have uniform quality standards accepted and implemented across the European nurserystock sector. These ENA Quality Standards are now the accepted minimum plant standards used. They are obviously, constantly evolving and therefore likely to be reviewed and re-written.

 

The 2010 edition should therefore be considered the current version until further notice.

 

 

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