ANLA and APHIS sit down to strategize

From Joe Bischoff, Regulatory & Legislative Affairs Director for ANLA:

Last week representatives from ANLA and SAF sat down with the USDA’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) leadership, including APHIS Administrator Kevin Shea and Deputy Administrator Osama El-Lissy, to discuss industry and agency challenges and find new ways to efficiently tackle them. Industry members participating included Mike Klopmeyer, Ph.D., of Ball Horticultural Company, West Chicago, Illinois; Jerry Lee, of Monrovia in Cairo, Georgia; and by phone, Robert Woolley, of Dave Wilson Nursery, Hickman, California.

In recent years APHIS has faced considerable budget reductions but their obligations to protect American agriculture from foreign pests and diseases, while facilitating international trade remain. The overall theme was to find ways to work more closely and take advantage of synergies with the intention of saving resource while helping the horticulture industry grow and thrive.

The topics discussed were broad and included issues around new plants for planting regulations, challenges with the Controlled Import Permit process, our interaction on integrated measures in plant production certification systems and support for the National Clean Plant Network, to name a few.

“When we look across the government at the various agencies, APHIS is at the top in regards to collaboration,” said Joe Bischoff, Regulatory & Legislative Affairs Director for ANLA. “Sure we’ve got challenges but Administrator Shea made it clear, he wants to work with us and that’s encouraging.”