[BULBS-L] Importing Bulbs and Seeds

People like you that comply with APHIS, etc. are keeping our Agriculture and Horticulture safe. I had to spend half a year explaining to a new APHIS officer the need for renewing the same permit (that has been used for 30 years) for our cotton germplasm operations. They have their rules to follow and can't make exceptions without them naming the choices.

Be patient and do your part to keep our plants safe!

James Frelichowski

--- On Mon, 1/26/09, Lee Poulsen <wpoulsen@pacbell.net> wrote:

From: Lee Poulsen <wpoulsen@pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: [pbs] [BULBS-L] Importing Bulbs and Seeds
To: "Pacific Bulb Society" <pbs@lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Monday, January 26, 2009, 3:40 PM

Count me as one who would like to do the right thing all of the time.
But it was interesting to read the discussion that accompanied the
several entries in the Federal Register when the small seed lots permit
was being brought into existence, and then see what resulted.

One of the concerns or issues that kept being discussed was that the
best enforcement method would be making it in the best interests of the
importers to WANT to follow the rules. And one conclusion that was
mentioned several times was that the best way to do this was to make it
worth any rare plant growers while to exert a little effort to help
APHIS/PPQ keep out pests to the fullest extent possible. It has been
discussed here and in other forums over the years that no rare plant
grower could conceivably want to import diseases or pests. They want
their own plants to be as healthy as that of any commercial farmer or
plant grower. No one wants their rare plants (or common ones for that
matter) to get sick, die, or be eaten up. The discussers also
acknowledged that the more expensive or more unnecessarily difficult
they made the import process, the greater chance they created of causing
importers to smuggle in something that was most likely safe, but not
worth the money or red tape involved to do it the right way.

We're not talking about plants that are already proven dangerous, but in
many cases ones that have been imported before and pose no problem
whatsoever. And even in the case of potentially dangerous plants, I
think efforts have been made to put a process in place so that
legitimate importing can be done.

However, I have found the government to be as guilty of causing
unnecessary problems as the importers might be.

For example, someone mentioned citrus (and the associated citrus
greening problem). I have liked growing citrus for many years. And I
discovered that there is a process in place to get new species or
varieties imported. There is a certain citrus variety I discovered
during a trip to Japan. It was unlike anything I have ever seen
available in the U.S. I searched everywhere for legitimate sources in
the U.S. (and I'm pretty good at that) to no avail. Then I found out
about the process. I submitted my request, sent various emails and
regular emails out several times over several years, and to this date I
have never gotten even an acknowledgment that any of my emails or mail
had even been received, let alone a response or answer. Since then I've
checked several times and gone on extensive Google hunts and discovered
that others have wanted this variety imported and sent through the
de-virusing process that California is charged with providing, also to
no avail, and that someone somewhere finally decided to and managed to
smuggle it in anyway. I am in no way defending that action. However, I
feel justified in saying that the government agents or agencies involved
have no one to blame but themselves. If they had just bothered to even
respond once to any of these individuals, maybe to explain that it is
impossible to import and give the reasons, then quite a few, possible
everyone that wanted it, would not have thought about trying to smuggle
it in. Since I myself never got a response, I have only been able to
invent an explanation for the nonresponsiveness of the agencies
involved. Because I have seen that they have been importing other
varieties and they have all been, as far as I can tell, varieties that
large commercial growers would be the most interested in, I have
surmised that for some reason, the agency doesn't care about private
individuals even though their charge is to serve everyone. The
information I read was that anyone could request varieties that the
agency should import. Since there is no charge, it can't be that the
large commercial growers were able to pay the fees that individual
requestors couldn't--since there were no fees involved. So in my own
mind, I blame it on a very strong bias towards commercial growers by the
gov't agencies to the point of ignoring individual or dooryard fruit
growers. (And I've personally witnessed this attitude in a handful of
other examples as well with other types of fruits, so my belief isn't
completely unsupported).

I think the process leading to, and the resulting rules for small seed
lots import permits turned out pretty well. I try to use it every time I
bring in seeds; however I can't control what the exporter does. There
are a number of very legitimate exporters in other countries who have
been exporting seeds to the U.S. and elsewhere for decades up until
APHIS decided to enforce an available but unused restriction on
unpermitted seed imports, who don't like the change, even as minimal as
it has become. What I don't understand is that if the exporter fails to
follow the rules, why must APHIS/PPQ resort to *destroying* the
shipment? It is completely unneeded. And kind of ridiculous when it
involves very rare species that really need to be grown by more people
before they possibly go extinct. (For example, Worsleya procera.) Sure,
some people live far away from inspection stations. But some of us
don't. If they called me up, I would drive over and either pay to send
it back to the importer or pay some nominal (not an outrageous fee like
Australia charges) to have the inspectors look it over and check for the
things the exporter was supposed to have checked for--especially for
something rare and/or very hard to obtain. There really is no need
whatsoever to destroy a non-dangerous import simply because some aspect
of the import rules weren't followed correctly, but could be resolved
safely at the inspection station at this end instead. Of course, then
there are the plant items that are sent to (in my area) the Huntington
or the San Diego or Los Angeles Zoos. In some cases, those places have
never grown the item, and don't know how to. While there are some people
on this list who are expert at growing them and getting them to thrive,
even being some of the most knowledgable about it. But the gov't
agencies don't seem to have that as one of the options they are willing
to try. Why?

What you're not ever ever going to do is get Americans, in particular,
to stop wanting some non-dangerous plant species or variety that they
really want to grow. I think every government agency should attempt to
try to satisfy that as much as is reasonably possible, especially since
all gov't agency employees are actually employees of the citizens who
pay the taxes that pay their salaries. I have a hard time understanding
why some agencies seem to not acknowledge that fact. My work is
ultimately paid for by federal taxes, and we *always* keep that in mind.
In fact, the entity I work for makes it a budget line item of every
project we do to spend, I think it's 15 or 20%, on public outreach for
every project we do, even though public outreach doesn't help us
complete or accomplish any of the projects we do. We know where our
money comes from and want the taxpayers to know and hopefully approve of
what we're doing with their money always.

I think you will find that virtually everyone in this group would be
more than happy to try to come up with solutions that everyone including
the agencies like APHIS/PPQ could be optimally happy with. (No one is
ever going to get 100% of what they want of course. I acknowledge that.)
As far as I have experienced all the plant people I've known want to do
the right thing. They don't like when that is made prohibitively
difficult or expensive for no good reason.

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

WDA wrote:

It only takes one person to create a movement and the strength of the

movement can create change. As plant collectors in a public forum we should
collectively be worried about those individuals who do not advocate to the legal
method of plant importation. If we police ourselves then there is less tendency
for the government to do it for us. I for one do not want to have my narcissus
bulbs die away because of a plant pest native to the origins of the plant
material. Nor would I want my neighbor to introduce plant pests across the fence
because it's cheaper and easier to bypass the system. I certainly would not
buy from a nursery that advocates by passing the system. But that's just me.
One person.

Bill

_______________________________________________
pbs mailing list
pbs@lists.ibiblio.org
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php
http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/