The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes March 20 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
CBP will enforce a federal quarantine order recently issued by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection service (see 1503180017) meant to stop imports containing the Mediterranean fruit fly from the Dominican Republic, said CBP (here). The APHIS Administrator has determined that the fly, known as a Medfly, poses a serious threat to U.S. agriculture and "that this serious plant pest threat must be immediately addressed." Medfly is not known to occur in the U.S. except in Hawaii, and it's estimated that the species would be able to establish populations in southern regions of the U.S., said CBP. "Effective immediately, APHIS is suspending all importations of fruit and vegetable commodities known to be Medfly hosts from the Dominican Republic," said CBP.
A proposed increase in the Agricultural Quarantine inspection fees would burden importers and transportation service providers and more analysis is needed, said Reps. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., and Mario Díaz-Balart, R-Fla. in a letter (here). The letter, dated March 23, calls on the House Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee to withhold funding toward putting the fees in place.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes March 18 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The North American Plant Protection Organization has selected Stephanie Bloem as its new executive director, said the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service in a message to stakeholders emailed on March 18 (here). Bloem is currently a risk analyst in the APHIS Plant Protection and Quarantine program.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued a federal order on March 18 (here) prohibiting imports of 18 fruits and vegetables from the Dominican Republic. Effective immediately, imports of avocado; clementine; grape; grapefruit; lemon; litchi; longan; mamey (sapote); mandarin; orange; papaya; pepper; pummelo; tangelo; tangerine; tomato; and tuna (cactus fruit) will not be allowed from the Caribbean country. Imports of mango will be restricted to commercial consignments that have gone through the APHIS hot water treatment preclearance program. APHIS is also prohibiting overland in-bond transit movements of these fruits and vegetables south of 39° latitude. The agency said the ban comes after multiple detections of Medfly in the Punta Cana region of the Dominican Republic.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service announced changes March 12 to Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service confirmed that new foreign inspection certificate requirements will take effect on March 18, in a Federal Register notice formally “extending” the deadline (here). APHIS first announced in October that paper filers have until March 18 before they must begin submitting foreign inspection certificates meeting the new requirements along with a revised Form 9540-1 (Application for Import Inspection) (see 1411030021). A final rule issued in September required that foreign inspection certificates supply additional information about the product being imported, including the process category, and the product category and the product group, as well as the source country and establishment number (if the source materials originate from a country other than the country that is exporting to the U.S.).
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has moved a step closer to allowing importation of cranberries from Chile, finding in a pest risk analysis (here) that certain phytosanitary measures would be enough to mitigate the risk of pest introduction should imports of the product be allowed. The agency will accept comments on its analysis until May 11, after which it will announce its final decision.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is reopening the period for comments on its proposal to allow imports of orchid plants of the genus Oncidium from Taiwan to the U.S, it said (here). Under the proposed rule, issued in December (see 1412030014), the orchid would be required to be contained in an approved growing medium and would be subject to certification requirements. Comments on the proposed rule are now due by March 18.