Having been been deprived of water for about two months, the plants (grown hydroponically in pumice) were necrotic, and, perhaps, could have been destroyed simply by leaving them to rot in a field or by tossing them in a bonfire. Presumably because they had been deemed an ‘Unwanted Organism’, MPI treated the plants as if they presented a danger to the environment, if not to humanity, and so employed a decontamination firm to remove and destroy them.The workers, garbed in protective suits, bagged the plants securely and took the bags away for destruction in accordance with appropriate decontamination procedures (burying in a deep hole? immersion in acid?). Then they thoroughly cleaned the greenhouse.

“This was hard work and it was well done.” Stoothoff says he’s grateful to MPI for leaving a clean greenhouse in which he can now grow plants – It must be said, however, that MPI initially claimed that he was obliged to remove the plants, and agreed to arrange for the work to be done only after some harsh words on his part.

“Nevertheless, as a taxpayer I am disappointed that the MPI spent so much to do a job which could have been done at a much lower cost. I suspect that this can be explained by the same two factors that explain their rejection of our application to allow trade in asparagus fern stems, namely bureaucratic inertia and the Precautionary Principle. The former is the tendancy for bureaucratic organisations to blindly apply regulations and policies instead of using commonsense. There are, I imagine, protocols and guidelines for disposing of Unwanted Organisms, which – through bureaucratic inertia – the MPI was bound to follow in dealing with our plants,” he added.

Stoothoff suggested that the Precautionary Principle is the principle, “beloved by Risk Industry bureaucrats”, that in the absence of rock-solid evidence regarding the probability of an adverse event (like an Asparagus plumosus plant escaping into the wild), the mere ‘potential’ for the occurrence of such an event is deemed to provide grounds for action designed to eliminate the possibility of its occurring. Presumably Risk Industry bureaucrats are also guided by cost-benefit considerations, but apparently these did not enter into MPI’s decision to spend $11,356 plus GST to remove his A. plumosus plants.

He readily acknowledged that his explanation of this expenditure might be mistaken. “Perhaps the MPI action was not the result of bureaucratic inertia and application of the Precautionary Principle? They may have had good reasons for spending this money, but I’m sceptical, as I am about many of the decisions and policies devised by Risk Industry bureaucrats.”