Washington, March 7, 2006—The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service today posted for comment a draft citrus health response plan, which marks the first step toward a new approach for sustaining Florida's citrus industry in light of recent realities about citrus canker spread and other disease threats.
“As promised, we have worked hard with our state, industry and university counterparts to develop a viable plan that will enable Florida to produce, harvest, process, and ship healthy citrus in the presence of citrus canker,” said Ron DeHaven, APHIS administrator. “We are now giving producers, nursery owners and residents an opportunity to comment on this plan so we can move quickly to ensure Florida citrus can be shipped safely.”
The draft plan would establish an area-wide compliance program and identify minimum standards for implementing appropriate survey, diagnostics, and mitigation measures to reduce the proliferation and spread of citrus canker and other diseases of regulatory significance. In addition to sustaining Florida ’s citrus industry, the goal of the plan is also to safeguard other citrus producing states against the spread of citrus canker and citrus greening, which was recently identified in Florida .
The 2004 and 2005 hurricanes spread citrus canker so extensively that it was determined on Jan. 10, 2006, that eradication was no longer a scientifically feasible option. At that time, the established program was modified to stop the practice of destroying trees within 1,900 feet of an infected tree. Since eradication is no longer possible, tree removal is no longer mandatory, whether or not the tree is infected.
Key components of the draft Citrus Health Response Plan, among others, include:
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Robust biosecurity to minimize the spread of disease transfer through clothing, equipment and vehicles;
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Registration of all citrus producers, production units, nurseries, budwood facilities, harvesters and packinghouses;
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Inspection of all nursery stock prior to movement so it can be certified as disease free;
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Inspection of all citrus within 90 days of harvest;
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Continued commercial surveillance by government officials and through self-survey to identify any new infections of citrus canker or other citrus diseases.
USDA will continue to work with our state and industry partners to address all comments, finalize the draft plan and begin to move forward with implementation. While this represents a major shift from our previous approach, it is important to emphasize that existing state and federal citrus canker quarantines remain in effect. Throughout this process, on-going surveillance and early pest detection is critical to ensuring that new outbreaks are quickly diagnosed and identified before they spread. In addition, USDA will continue to seek funding to compensate growers who had trees removed prior to the halt of eradication activities on Jan. 10, 2006.