Details of APHIS' Risk-Based Inspection of Plants for Planting at Ports of Entry
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service recently issued a notice advising the public that on October 17, 2011, it would implement a risk-based sampling approach for the inspection of imported plants for planting at ports of entry.
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(Plants for planting are those plants intended to remain planted, to be planted or replanted. The definition of plant includes any plant (including any plant part) for or capable of propagation, including a tree, a tissue culture, a plantlet culture, pollen, a shrub, a vine, a cutting, a graft, a scion, a bud, a bulb, a root, and a seed.)
(See ITT’s Online Archives 11101942 for APHIS’ announcement of the new risk-based plan for inspecting plants for planting.)
APHIS Will Initially Sample all Plants at High Risk Rates to Gather Data
APHIS states that it will evaluate and assign ratings based upon the risk associated with taxa of plants for planting and the countries from which they are exported. Initially, all taxa of plants for planting will be considered high risk and sampled at high risk rates until APHIS can gather sufficient data to establish levels of risk.
Categories Found to Be Medium or Low Risk Will Then Be Sampled Less
After APHIS has sufficient data showing that a taxon falls under the medium or low risk categories, it will be sampled at a less intensive rate than high-risk plants for planting. APHIS will periodically update the categories in response to data collected from all inspections.
Extremely Low Risk Will Be Periodically Monitored, but not Necessarily Inspected
For taxa of plants for planting that APHIS has determined pose an extremely low risk, APHIS is establishing a Propagative Monitoring and Release Program (PMRP). Under the PMRP, consignments of these taxa will be periodically monitored, but not every consignment will be inspected. However, consignments that are inspected will be inspected at normal sampling levels to confirm continued eligibility for PMRP.
Past Inspections Were not Risk-Based, 2% of Each Consignment Was Checked
In the past, APHIS inspectors inspected a minimum of two percent of every consignment of plants for planting presented for inspection. APHIS believes that this new approach will standardize its inspection rates and allows it to better allocate inspection resources towards target plants that are known to present a higher risk.
USDA press release (dated 10/20/11) available here