USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has added two new features to its recent updates page detailing system enhancements for Agricultural Commodity Import Requirements. The page now includes an updated link to the Approved Facility Updates Reference Document and a new tab for ACIR system enhancements, APHIS said in a Jan. 12 emailed newsletter on ACIR.
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is asking the Office of Management and Budget to allow the agency to extend by three years its information collection activities related to a "universal 'common forms' permit package" (four different collection uses now combined into one form) and the inclusion of pork-filled pasta products in this permit package instead of it having its own information collection activity. Importers, exporters and port personnel are among those who would have an interest in this information collection, according to APHIS. Comments on this information collection are due by March 9, the agency said in a Federal Register notice.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has released a draft pest risk assessment on imports of Prunus spp. cuttings from Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Comments on the draft pest risk assessment for the commercially produced, dormant and uprooted cuttings for planting are due by Feb. 3. The Prunus genus includes species of deciduous trees and shrubs, such as cherry, almond, peach, plum and apricot trees.
USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service is decreasing the value assigned to imported cotton, which will affect the calculation of supplemental assessments used by the Cotton Research and Promotion Program, according to a Federal Register notice. AMS amends the Cotton Board Rules and Regulations and increases or decreases the value each year to ensure that assessments collected on imported cotton and the cotton content of imported products will be the same as those paid on domestically produced cotton.
The USDA Foreign Agricultural Service released a list of updated quantity trigger levels and applicable periods for products that may be subject to additional import duties under the safeguard provisions of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture.
USDA's Foreign Agricultural Service is seeking comments on whether it's necessary and appropriate to establish additional terms and conditions for sugar imports, including the potential impact that changes to those terms and conditions might have on the domestic sugar industry, according to a Federal Register notice. Comments are due by Jan. 14.
USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service has updated its guidelines on label approvals, according to a Federal Register notice. The guidelines are meant to help establishments meet new requirements for use of voluntary U.S.-origin label claims on FSIS-regulated products, per the final rule “Voluntary Labeling of FSIS Regulated Products with U.S.-Origin Claims.”
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has updated its website on New World screwworm (NWS) to centralize the information available across the federal government, the agency said Nov. 21. Collaborating agencies include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the FDA, EPA, DHS and the departments of Energy, State and the Interior.
USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said the temporary suspension of the International Standard for Phytosanitary Measures No. 15 (ISPM 15) hyphen requirement will end on Dec. 31 of this year.
USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service is seeking comments on whether to revise U.S. standards for rough rice, brown rice for processing and milled rice, saying that "rice production, quality assessment methods, and consumer preferences may have changed" since AMS last opened a public comment period in 2015, according to a Federal Register notice. Comments will be accepted through Jan. 20.