I just a phone call from USDA/APHIS down the street from the L.A.
Airport informing me that a package of seeds had arrived from Rachel
Saunders in South Africa, and that I could either take time off from
work to fight traffic and drive over there and pick it up in person. Or
I could open an account with Federal Express and then give them my
account number that they could charge to and they could ship it across
town via FedEx. Or I could mail them actual postage stamps of
sufficient value ($1.35) for the weight of the package to have the US
Postal Service deliver it to my home. The guy I spoke with says he has
called several superiors of his several times since this new method was
begun seeking instruction on what exactly to do. He also acknowledged
that the USDA and the USPS are having an argument over whether the USPS
has to continue shipment or if they can charge full postage rates
depending on what the final destination that the package was addressed
to is. (The permit says the shipper should not put our address on the
outside of the package, but when the Archibalds put both the green and
yellow label and my address on the outside of the package it was
delivered all the way to my house. I couldn't tell if USDA/APHIS had
opened it for inspection or not.)

What this guy did say was that I could not send them money in any form
nor could they take a credit card number. I talked over various crazy
ideas with their dispatcher and she said that the program was so new
they hadn't really thought up any long term plans or solutions. I asked
her about sending her a supply of postage stamps that she could save
and use until they were all used up. She thought she could probably
keep them in a file for all packages I received and notify me when the
supply was gone. She suggested the idea that I send the postage stamps
along with the copy of my permit and the green and yellow label to the
overseas sender and then that person could include the postage stamps
inside the package together with the seeds. This of course would
require that I know how much the package was going to weigh beforehand,
or at least have an estimate of it.

In any case, it is an added complication that I wish they had figured
out back when they were figuring out this new method of seed importing.
Question: In Australia, after they've checked over your incoming seed,
do you have to go pick them up at the inspection station? Or are you
required to send them or provide them with the means or money to ship
them from the station to your home? Or do they just put them back in
the mail and your postal service delivers them to the final destination
without any additional charges? It would be somewhat ironic if they
don't charge you for that service since they do charge you for just
about everything else including many services that we in the U.S. don't
have to pay for, and yet here in the U.S. they do want to charge
additional for delivering the seeds the final leg of their journey. (I
also found out that if I need to get a phytosanitary certificate to
mail plants overseas, for about US$40 total the inspector will drive
over to my house, inspect all the plants I want to send, make out the
certificate, and give it to me. I believe that is cheaper than what the
Australians have to pay.) Anyway, just wondering.

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena, California, USDA Zone 10a

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