Pest Detection |
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Background
The goal of PPQ’s pest detection program is to protect America’s agricultural and ecological resources by insuring the early detection of harmful or economically significant plant pest and weeds.
A strong national domestic agricultural pest detection system will provide a continuum of checks from offshore pre-clearance programs through port inspections to surveys in rural and urban sites across the United States. A new aspect of national plant pest surveys is biological terrorism. Plant pests, weeds, and diseases are potential agents of bioterriorism.
In addition, PPQ’s pest detection and survey activities have traditionally included exotic fruit fly trapping and tracking the occurrence of domestic plant pests such as imported fire ant, gypsy moth Japanese beetle and witchweed. Other activities have included various exotic plant pests, diseases, and weed national surveys and some pest detection activities to help meet various export requirements of foreign countries.
Surveys are accomplished under the Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) program in which USDA-PPQ funding provided through cooperative agreements with state departments of agriculture and universities.
The mission of the Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey (CAPS) program is to provide a distribution profile of plant pests in the United States deemed to be of regulatory significance to USDA-APHIS-PPQ, State Departments of Agriculture, tribal governments, and cooperators by:
- Confirming the presence or absence of plant pests impacting the domestic and international movement of plants and plant products; and
- Establishing and maintaining a comprehensive network of cooperators and stakeholders to facilitate our mission and to safeguard our American plant resources.