APHIS updates Plants for Planting manual

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently updated its Plants for Planting manual to include a section on the United States – Canada Nursery Certification Program (NCP), which is a bilateral export certification program for nursery-grown plants shipped between Canada and the continental United States.

The NCP information added to the manual in Chapter 4 covers the inspections at customs, entry requirements, phytosanitary certificate requirements, commodities excluded from the Canadian Nursery Certification Program (CNCP), eligible plants, eligible plant taxa, authorized facilities, regulated pests, specific provincial requirements and instructions for Customs and Border Protection on how to handle CNCP shipments.

NCP uses a systems approach to mitigate pest risk and requirements are applied equivalently in the United States and in Canada.