# Presentation: 032990

## Safeguarding 

**American Agriculture **
**and Natural Resources**

**United States Department of Agriculture**
**Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service**
**Plant Protection and Quarantine**

## Our Mission

- To ensure an abundant, high-quality, and varied food supply
- To strengthen the marketability of U.S. agriculture
- To preserve U.S. ecosystems and protect against invasive species

- Safeguarding U.S. Agriculture and Natural Resources

## PPQ’s Goal

- “...mitigating pest risks, domestically and abroad, through exclusion, intensive surveillance, early detection, and containment of pests and diseases before they can spread.”

- —	Dr. Richard Dunkle
- 	PPQ Deputy Administrator

## Who We Are

- We are a diverse range of professionals dedicated to conserving, protecting, and enhancing American agriculture.
- From botanists to virologists, accountants to writers, we’re all part of a historic tradition and a challenging future.

## What We Do

- Keep foreign plant pests out of the United States
- Document the presence of plant pests within the United States
- Ensure safe agricultural trade by removing unjustified pest-related trade barriers
- Detect, control, or eradicate foreign plant pests

## Why We Keep Out Foreign Pests

- More than 6,500 nonnative species are established in the United States.
- More than 900 or 1/7 of these species are economically or environmentally harmful.
- Harmful nonnative species cost billions of dollars in control or loss of marketable goods.
- Harmful nonnative species affect agriculture, forestry, human health, and tourism.

## How We Keep Out Foreign Pests

- Establish risk-based import regulations and policies for agricultural commodities (e.g., produce, plants, craft products)
- Inspect and treat agricultural commodities for pests in their country of origin prior to export to the United States
- At inspection stations, inspect propagative material imported into the United States, taking appropriate action when pests are detected

## How We Ensure Safe Agricultural Trade

- Establish import regulations and policies for goods imported into the United States
- Issue import and interstate movement permits for plant pests
- Review plant health certificates issued by exporting countries for imported goods
- Monitor trade of endangered or threatened species
- Issue plant health certificates for agricultural goods exported from the United States

## How We Detect, Control, or Eradicate Plant Pests and Diseases

- Excluding foreign pests, when possible, is our goal.
- If barriers fail, early detection of the pest is the next best strategy.
- Early detection assures
- Faster and cheaper control
- Availability of more control strategies
- Greater possibility of success

## Elements of Pest Response Program

- Survey (Where are the pests?)
- Identification (What are they?)
- Regulation to prevent spread
- Bans movement of materials with a quarantine
- Restricts movement of materials through permits
- Control or eradication
- Host removal
- Pesticides
- Agricultural production practices
- Biological control
- Sterile insect release

## Some Ongoing Emergency Programs

- Karnal bunt
- Fungal disease of wheat detected in Arizona, California, and Texas
- Citrus canker
- Bacterial disease of citrus detected in Florida
- Exotic fruit flies
- Agricultural pests threatening more than 250 U.S. crops
- Asian longhorned beetle
- Wood-boring insect threatening the survival of hardwood trees

## Asian Longhorned Beetle

- Wood-boring insect native to China
- Hitch-hiked to United States in wooden pallets and crates
- Cause of destruction of more than
- 7,156 trees in New York City
- 1,770 trees in Chicago
- 461 trees in Jersey City, NJ

## PPQ’s Response to the Asian Longhorned Beetle Outbreak

- Establish quarantines restricting the interstate movement of firewood and other host material from infested areas
- Identify beetle-infested trees
- Remove infested host trees and high-risk trees
- Treat noninfested, susceptible host trees

## Our Partners in Response

- U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service
- State Departments of Agriculture
- Local governments where infestations occur

## For More Information

- Please visit our Web site at http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ppq