SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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62–730 CC
2000
2000
INVASIVE SPECIES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
LIVESTOCK AND HORTICULTURE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
JANUARY 31, 2000, LAKE ALFRED, FL
Serial No. 106–42
Printed for the use of the Committee on Agriculture
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
LARRY COMBEST, Texas, Chairman
BILL BARRETT, Nebraska,
Vice Chairman
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio
THOMAS W. EWING, Illinois
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
NICK SMITH, Michigan
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
RAY LaHOOD, Illinois
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JOHN R. THUNE, South Dakota
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
KEN CALVERT, California
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
BOB RILEY, Alabama
GREG WALDEN, Oregon
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MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
DOUG OSE, California
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas,
Ranking Minority Member
GARY A. CONDIT, California
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina
DAVID MINGE, Minnesota
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
EARL POMEROY, North Dakota
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
CHRISTOPHER JOHN, Louisiana
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
DAVID D. PHELPS, Illinois
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KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
MIKE THOMPSON, California
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOE BACA, California
——— ———
Professional Staff
WILLIAM E. O'CONNER, JR., Staff Director
LANCE KOTSCHWAR, Chief Counsel
STEPHEN HATERIUS, Minority Staff Director
KEITH WILLIAMS, Communications Director
Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture
RICHARD W. POMBO, California, Chairman
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio,
Vice Chairman
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
HELEN CHENOWETH-HAGE, Idaho
JOHN N. HOSTETTLER, Indiana
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
KEN CALVERT, California
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
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BOB RILEY, Alabama
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota,
Ranking Minority Member
TIM HOLDEN, California
GARY A. CONDIT, Pennsylvania
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
Boyd, Hon. Allen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, opening statement
Prepared statement
Canady, Hon. Charles T., a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida, opening statement
Prepared statement
Pombo, Hon. Richard W., a Representative in Congress from the State of California, opening statement
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Witnesses
Bolusky, Ben, executive vice-president, Florida Nurserymen & Growers Association
Prepared statement
Browning, Harold W., center director, Citrus Research and Education Center
Prepared statement
LaVigne, Andrew W., executive vice-president and chief executive officer, Florida Citrus Mutual
Prepared statement
Loop, Carl B., Jr., president, Florida Farm Bureau
Prepared statement
Putnam, Adam, Florida House of Representatives
Prepared statement
Raley, Lindsay, Polk County Farm Bureau
Prepared statement
Roberts, Martha, deputy commissioner, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, on behalf of Commissioner Bob Crawford
Prepared statement
Schwalbe, Charles P., Associate Deputy Administrator, Plant Protection and Quarantine, APHIS, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Stuart, Michael J., president, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association
Prepared statement
Taylor, R.J., president, Florida Tomato Exchange
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Prepared statement
Wheeling, Craig, chief executive officer, Brooks Tropicals, Inc.
Prepared statement
Submitted Material
Griffiths, James T., Citrus Growers Association, Inc., statement
INVASIVE SPECIES
MONDAY, JANUARY 31, 2000
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture,
Committee on Agriculture
Lake Alfred, FL
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in the Ben Hill Griffin Hall, Citrus Research Center, University of Florida, Lake Alfred, FL, Hon. Richard W. Pombo (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representative Canady.
Also present: Representative Boyd
Staff present: Christopher D'Arcy, subcommittee staff director, Brent Gattis, legislative assistant, and Danelle Farmer, minority consultant.
Mr. POMBO. The subcommitte will now come to order.
I would like to start by asking unanimous consent to allow Congressman Allen Boyd to sit on the committee and to participate in the subcommittee
[No objection.]
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD W. POMBO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
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Mr. POMBO. This morning, the Subcommittee on Livestock and Horticulture will exercise its oversight jurisdiction with regard to issues concerning invasive, harmful and non-native species facing the United States. I would like to take this opportunity to welcome my colleagues, Representatives Canady and Boyd, and to thank them for their interest in this important issue.
At the start of the 106th Congress, this subcommittee's jurisdiction was expanded to include fruits and vegetables. It is clear to me that invasive species represent a serious threat to that sector of American agriculture.
As the House Agriculture Committee anticipates the next farm bill and as we prepare to consider legislation such as the Plant Protection Act, I felt that the committee needed to look closely at invasive species. I hope that we can determine how to better combat this growing problem in an era of increased and expanded agricultural trade between the United States and a growing number of countries. Currently, it is very difficult to put a dollar figure on the total adverse economic costs associated with invasive species. This is due in part because no Federal agency compiles such statistics comprehensively. One recent estimate presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science puts the figure at $123 billion annually, which includes the cost of control, decreased property values, health costs and a variety of other factors.
Invasive species are dealt with under a patchwork of Federal and State laws and regulations administered by a wide variety of Federal agencies, most importantly being APHIS. I believe that it is crucial that the various agencies of the Federal, State and local governments work together, especially in an era of tight budgets, to ensure that all money is spent wisely, avoiding a duplication of effort and the relevant scientific information that is shared.
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Florida is a very good place to address these concerns. Like my home State of California, Florida stands on the front lines in a fight against invasive and harmful species, with more than its fair share of problems.
As national leaders in agriculture production as well as entry points for foreign fruits and vegetables entering the country, Florida and California have a unique challenge to combat invasive species. Whether it is fire ants or citrus canker, our two States have so many harmful species as to pose a serious ecological and economic threat to a variety of locations and industries.
In the search for answers and solutions, I want to establish a meaningful dialog involving Federal and State governments, growers, farm bureaus, retailers and everyone in between, to ensure that we do all we can to protect our States from these harmful species. The testimony we will receive will help me and my colleagues to better understand your work and help promote your success.
I welcome all of our witnesses and guests here this morning and I look forward to today's testimony.
Mr. Canady, do you have an opening statement?
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES T. CANADY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. CANADY. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I would like to briefly thank you for your leadership on this issue and for convening this hearing here in Lake Alfred today.
Everyone in the room knows how important this is to Florida agriculture. This is an issue which is critical to the future of the industry in our State. It is important around the country and I want to thank you for your leadership in focusing on this critical issue.
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I also want to acknowledge our colleague, Representative Boyd, and thank him for the hard work he has done to help us deal with the challenges we face in Florida. We are fortunate to have Representative Boyd as a member of the Agriculture Committee and he and Chairman Young—I am sorry the Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee. He and Chairman Young of the Appropriations Committee have done an outstanding job in helping us get the assistance that we need here in Florida in Federal funding.
What we have seen to date I think is a good cooperative effort between the Federal Government and the State in meeting some of the challenges that we face. But there is an ongoing need for that. I would also like to acknowledge the role of the State legislature and that would not have been possible without—and we are very glad that the Chairman of the State House Agriculture Committee, Representative Putnam, my State representative, is here with us today. And of course, Commissioner Crawford has done an outstanding job in spearheading this issue for us. I know that Commissioner Crawford had hoped to be here today and had planned to be here. But his travel plans were derailed by the bad weather and the snow and ice that has been experienced over the weekend. So we are glad to have him ably represented here today by Dr. Roberts and we will look forward to her testimony.
With that, I will not give an extended discussion about this problem because we have such an outstanding list of witnesses. And again, I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and your staff for the fine work that you have done in putting together this hearing. We truly have an outstanding list of witnesses who I think will bring very helpful information to the subcommittee.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Canady follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES T. CANADY
Mr. Chairman, as the Representative of the 12th Congressional District in Florida, I want to express my appreciation to the subcommittee for holding this important hearing on the serious and ever-increasing threat that invasive species pose to agriculture. I also wish to thank the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for their ongoing efforts toward the interdiction and containment of foreign pests and disease that cause such significant damage to our State and Nation's agricultural production.
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At this time, we are faced with the daunting task of protecting Florida's $8 billion citrus industry from the serious threat of Asiatic Citrus Canker. While in the last year the Federal and State Governments, as well as the citrus industry, committed extensive fiscal resources toward the control of this devastating disease, Citrus Canker has recently been found to be pervasive within South Florida lime groves. An alarming 88 percent of all lime groves inspected since early January are infected with Citrus Canker, forcing the burning of over 110,000 trees. This destructive disease threatens the existence not only of the lime industry, but the viability of the State's entire citrus economy.
Aggressive inspection and eradication of Citrus Canker and other exotic pests and disease is absolutely essential to the survival of this State's agricultural industry and the farm sector nationwide. I believe this hearing provides a timely opportunity to hear from Federal and state government officials and agricultural organizations not only concerning the extensive damage associated with invasive species, but also to hear their recommendations for curtailing future agricultural losses.
Throughout the country, farm production has suffered from exotic pests that have come across our Nation's borders. In California, invasive species such as the Medfly and Pierce's Disease may halt high value exports from infested areas. In the southern United States, boll weevil pests have cost cotton producers and the Federal Government millions of dollars. Noxious weeds have attacked crops in the Carolinas and western States and animal pests and diseases brought in from foreign sources plague American livestock. The effect of harmful pests and disease throughout the Nation is profound. Clearly, we need to reassess our defensive strategy.
Exacerbating the serious economic consequences of invasive species are the outdated quarantine statutes that govern their interdiction. For this reason, I introduced the Plant Protection Act (H.R. 1504) aimed at giving Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) greater enforcement tools to protect against exotic species by modernizing and enhancing the agency's current statutory authority. I will continue to work with my colleagues toward speedy approval of this critical legislation in the 106th Congress. In addition, implementation of APHIS' recent Safeguarding Review Report, which calls for greater input from impacted parties in the agency's decision making process, should be encouraged.
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Finally, the enormous effect of invasive species on the movement of agricultural products in international trade can not be over emphasized. Concerns regarding the Mediterranean fruit fly have caused extended negotiations with the Chinese Government in order to allow the export of Florida, California, and Texas citrus. At the same time, U.S. trade negotiators must insist on adherence to strict international phytosanitary standards in our trade policy.
Once again, I thank the chairman for holding this hearing to review the extensive threat posed to Florida agriculture and farm production throughout the country due to invasive pests and disease. I hope that the testimony brought forth today by those most impacted can provide guidance to more effectively combat the grave consequences of invasive species to agriculture.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Boyd.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ALLEN BOYD, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Chairman Pombo. I want to express my gratitude to you for holding this important hearing here in central Florida and also for allowing me to sit as a guest member of your subcommittee for this hearing. I am grateful for that. Also, to my friend and colleague, Charlie Canady, I have had the opportunity to serve both in the Florida legislature and the U.S. Congress with you and those have been good years together and I know all of you know that Congressman Canady is leaving, and you are going to be sorely missed.
Mr. CANADY. Thank you.
Mr. BOYD. My best wishes to you.
I also want to thank the USDA and the Florida Department of Agriculture for what you do to protect our industry.
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Mr. Chairman, I do have a written opening statement for the record that I will not read but just very briefly summarize to say that I feel that it is the Government's responsibility to make sure that the resources are available and adequate to the folks who are charged with doing the job of protecting our industry and our State and our people.
I think that while trade and travel have increased exponentially over the last decade, we have been woefully inadequate in providing the resources to deal with the issues caused by that increased trade and travel. While certainly industry has its obligations in that, ultimately it rests on the shoulders of our governmental agencies to make sure that these invasive pests are not introduced into our State and our country where they can destroy our industry.
I know that Chairman Pombo shares this, coming from, as he stated earlier, a border State of California, he shares my commitment and our commitment to make sure that the resources are available to continue to combat this problem.
The world has changed dramatically since 1912 when we passed the Plant Protection Act. Congress has tried to, over the years, deal with it on a sort of a piecemeal basis and that has been inadequate and that is why I am particularly grateful to Congressman Canady for writing a comprehensive reform of the Plant Protection Act and I look forward to working with you, Chairman Pombo and Congressman Canady to make sure that we pass that in the Congress. That is one thing that we can do.
So thank you for holding this hearing, and I look forward to the testimony. I have reviewed the testimony of many of the panelists today and I think that we are in for a real great and informative day.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. ALLEN BOYD
Mr. Chairman, I want to express my thanks to you for having this important hearing in Florida and also for allowing me to participate as a guest member of your subcommittee. And to my friend and colleague, Congressman Canady, I appreciate all that you and your staff have done on behalf of Florida agriculture. You will be missed. I also want to add my thanks to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Florida Department of Agriculture for the job you do in fighting to protect our agriculture against foreign invasive pests. Last year when the Florida Department of Agriculture came into my office, along with representatives from Florida's citrus industry to educate me on economic cost in lost production and crop loss to Florida, I was shocked. That is why Congress and USDA must work together to modernize our current plant protection laws and devote adequate resources to detect these pests and diseases before they destroy our agriculture industry.
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I represent the Second Congressional District of Florida, located in north Florida and I serve on the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture. I am a fifth generation Florida farmer and have farmed my entire life, growing cotton, peanuts, livestock, timber and sod. I know from personal experience the economic devastation that pests and disease cause to not only the industry and the economy, but to the farmer and his family. Years before my service in public office, the entire cotton industry in the southeast was threatened by the boll weevil. I worked with the national cotton council and my fellow growers to implement the boll weevil eradication program in Florida and Georgia. So I believe I have a good understanding of what is at stake, both emotionally and economically, for the farmers whose livelihood is being threatened.
While there are numerous invasive pests and diseases that are of concern to our Florida tiers today, citrus canker is obviously the most alarming and threatening.
We were very successful this year in getting Congress' attention in the seriousness of this threat to our industry. In the spring, Chairman Bill Young, Congressman. Canady and myself were successful in getting $25 million in appropriations to be matched by State money to hire inspectors and continue the eradication process. Again, in fiscal year 2000, we were able to secure another $25 million towards these efforts, in addition to a $9 million appropriation to compensate the commercial grower for tree loss and $7 million for the residential or Shade/Dade tree replacement program. Sixty-six million dollars is a lot of money, however, we know this is just the beginning of a long, costly battle in our efforts to eradicate this disease.
I know we'll be hearing from folks from the lime industry, but I just want to express my sadness for the tragedy that is happening to our growers in south Florida. Before Hurricane Andrew (1992), south Florida had 6,000 acres in lime production. Afterwards, the industry had just 1,600 acres. In 2000, the industry has approximately 3,500 acres in production. Unfortunately, as of the January 24 almost 1,000 acres of groves had tested positive for canker.
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While I know that APHIS, with very limited resources, is tasked with being the lead agency in protecting U.S. agriculture from harmful foreign pests, noxious weeds, and plant diseases, it's this Government's responsibility to make sure that the resources are provided for everyone involved to adequately do the job. In fiscal year 1995, Congress appropriated APHIS $443 million. In fiscal year 1999, that figure was down to $425 million. (This does not include user fees available to APHIS). In our fiscal year 2000 appropriations, APHIS was provided $441 million and hopefully, we'll be able to do better in fiscal year 2001.
I am proud of our agriculture industry in Florida in the way it has have worked together on this issue. While industry certainly has its obligations, there is no doubt in my mind that the responsibility to protect our industry lies squarely on the shoulders of this government. It is not the fault of the producer that our country allows a pest to infiltrate our borders thereby jeopardizing an industry and our farmer's livelihood. I know that Chairman Pombo, coming from the border State of California, shares my commitment to making sure that resources are available to combat this problem.
The world has changed drastically since the Plant Protection Act of 1912. Unfortunately, while piecemeal attempts by Congress have been made along the way, no real comprehensive legislation has been passed to address this crises. That's why I am a co-sponsor of Congressman Canady's bill, H.R. 1504. That does take a comprehensive approach to addressing this problem, and I am committed to working with Congressmen Canady and Pombo to move this legislation along.
In closing, I am concerned for America's agriculture industry, and especially, the family farmer. As our country negotiates more and more trade agreements, opening up our borders to the threat of even more pests and diseases, and continues to operate under a farm policy that clearly does not provide adequate protections to our family farmers, I wonder how many more hers will go out of business before Congress and the administration act.
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Mr. POMBO. Thank you. I thank both of you for joining me here this morning. I think Mr. Boyd's work on agriculture, whether it is Food Quality Protection Act or the invasive species issues is testament to his work on agricultural issues and their impact on Florida. And as he mentioned, I think we are all going to miss Congressman Canady and as a testament to his popularity in his district, he walks into this room with produce sitting on the table and he does not even wince. He just sits down. Usually when politicians walk in a room, if they have got tomatoes sitting there, they kind of look around a little bit. [Laughter.]
But thank you.
I want to welcome our first panel here this morning. We have Dr. Charles Schwalbe, who is the Associate Deputy Administrator for Plant Protection and Quarantine, Animal and Health Inspection Service. We have the Honorable Adam Putnam, who is the chairman of the Florida House Agriculture Committee, and we have Dr. Martha Rhodes Roberts, who is the deputy commissioner for Food Safety.
We will begin with Dr. Schwalbe.
You know, if you want, you can give your testimony sitting down. I am not that formal, if you have not guessed already. [Laughter.]
But what I will tell you before you start is we try to limit the oral testimony to 5 minutes. Your entire written testimony will be included in the record. The lights are there to help you gauge as to how long a 5-minute statement is, but your entire written statements will be included in the record.
Doctor.
STATEMENT OF CHARLES P. SCHWALBE, ASSOCIATE DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, PLANT PROTECTION AND QUARANTINE, ANIMAL AND PLANT HEALTH INSPECTION SERVICE, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE
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Mr. SCHWALBE. Very good. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members of Congress for inviting us to be here with you today.
Mr. Chairman, you had actually referred to the problem of invasive species as a growing problem and indeed that is very much the case. And this is in part due to the increased trade and travel commerce going on in this global economy. But it is also due in part to the different ways that business is being done in this day and age. And this does indeed put our country at great risk.
Professor Dave Pementell from Cornell University published what is going to be an extremely important document for us in years to come, where he summarized the impacts and costs to this country of invasive species and put that estimate at nearly $120 billion annually. Again, I think that this is an important piece of information to have in the scientific literature.
In that APHIS is a key player in contending with this problem, I wanted to make sure that we emphasize the strategy that appears to be most effective in mitigating these risks. When we refer to safeguarding program, we talk not only about the activities that are going on at the ports of entry and those inspection procedures that we follow, but it should be viewed as the entire continuum of activities, beginning with activities done offshore in foreign countries to ensure that any risks originating there are mitigated prior to arrival of these produce products and passengers and such into the United States.
Secondarily in that line would be activities taking place at the port of entry through inspections and treatments, but a critical part of this entire safeguarding continuum has to do with the capacity for the very early detection and response to invasions because invasions will occur in spite of our best efforts in those first two levels of the safeguarding program. It is this ability to find infestations freshly when they first are established here, and to get our arms around them and respond to them. We have any number of successes where that has proven to be an effective and productive strategy. We also have some failures in that regard, which I am sure all of us are well aware of.
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So when we talk about safeguarding, I would encourage all of us to keep in mind this broad spectrum of activities that are fundamental to its success.
I would mention just very quickly some of the initiatives underway in APHIS at this point. Fortunately we have been able to restructure some of our user fee program activities and that will enable us to enhance many of these safeguarding activities which we are currently performing. We intend to invest these dollars in three areas.
First, as everyone knows, we need to shore up many of our inspection activities at ports of entry, our land borders, air borders—airports and so forth.
We also believe that much more emphasis needs to go into front end analysis. That is, to identify specifically those risks that are before us and to make sure that we are investing these dollars in the correct area.
And then finally to put research—or funds into developing improved technology for dealing with these problems.
We are focusing on, as a major risk at this point, the growing, apparently growing, incidence of smuggling of commercial quantities of produce into the United States through very devious means in many cases, and we are initiating quite an exhaustive initiative in that regard.
I would mention quickly that this business of identifying risks prior to arrival in the United States is the subject of a study that we are conducting with the National Academy of Sciences to help us better predict the invasiveness of species not known to occur in the United States. It is our believe that like we recognize Mediterranean fruit fly, for example, as an organism that must not be allowed into the United States, that there are other very specific organisms that must not be allowed into the United States. We need to identify them and we need to build a safeguarding program around them to see to it that that line in the sand is not crossed with these agents. What that means is that we will not be able to do everything, but if we can focus our resources on those most important issues. That is our strategy for the future.
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Again, I see my 5 minutes has expired here and I thank you very much for your time and I will be happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Schwalbe appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Putnam
STATEMENT OF ADAM PUTNAM, FLORIDA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
Mr. PUTNAM. Mr. Chairman, thank you and welcome to Florida. We appreciate the interest that you and the other members of the panel have shown in this critical issue.
I am a fifth generation Floridian and a citrus and cattle grower. I also serve as a State legislator where I chair the Committee on Agriculture. My district encompasses much of the citrus, cattle and phosphate regions here in Florida where we produce 80 percent of the oranges and grapefruits grown in the United States.
Contrary to most stereotypes, Florida agriculture rivals and even surpasses tourism in contributions to our State economy, contributing over $54 billion in 1997.
Florida is also the gateway port of the Western Hemisphere with 10 international airports and 11 deepwater seaports, and handling 113 million tons of gross freight every year. Through our borders pass hundreds of thousands of visitors, tourists, immigrants both legal and illegal, service men and women; brought here by cargo ships, cruise ships, pleasure boats, airlines and even inner tube rafts. Natural migratory patterns of birds, floating debris and climate conditions, coupled with our close proximity to Cuba and other Caribbean nations punctuate the porous nature of Florida's borders. Succinctly, members, it is physically impossible to fully safeguard Florida's borders from unwanted visitors of all shapes and species.
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Like farmers and ranchers everywhere though, Florida agriculturists face the perils of the market, mother nature and the demands of retailers and consumers. As if they were not enough, we have adjusted to the increased burden that our Government places on us through labor, pesticide, land use and tax laws. We struggle to grow our agribusinesses to achieve a level of financial security in an industry hardly known for its stability, so that the fruits of our labor may be passed on to the next generation of American farmers and ranchers. These, however, are different issues for a different day and I do not offer them as a digression from today's purpose, but rather to set the table with all the issues that farmers face and to distinguish between the things that we can affect as policymakers and those we cannot.
The exclusion, detection and eradication of exotic pests, plants and disease in order to prevent their establishment is an attainable public policy goal. Preventing introduction is much more cost-effective than preventing establishment, as our current battle with citrus canker illustrates.
As international travel becomes more popular and affordable, we must do a better job of educating travelers and heightening awareness of the dangers of bringing in undeclared items. We must establish appropriate penalties for failure to comply with these laws. As additional international trade agreements are considered, invasive, exotic pest issues must be addressed at the negotiation table, not after the fact. As existing agreements take root and blossom, we must prepare for the inevitable rise in new pest and disease introductions and the corresponding need for additional personnel and processes to deal with them. Make no mistake, gentlemen, it is not my position nor the position of Florida agriculture that these issues should arbitrarily stand in the way of opening up new markets for our exports and offering new opportunities for Florida growers and ranchers. We must recognize though that these are real issues with real costs to the farmer, the consumer and the environment.
Over the last 5 years, Florida has spent over $267 million alone to control and eradicate plants, pests and diseases. These figures reflect only those pests and diseases that we narrowly consider as agricultural in nature. Other invasives such as the melaleuca which has overtaken the Everglades, hydrilla which has overtaken millions of acres of freshwater lakes, and the Australian pine which threatens the entire Florida Keys ecosystem are not included in that figure.
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Florida growers and ranchers have borne $140 million in costs associated with controlling these unwanted tourists and estimates run in the hundreds of millions in lost sales. The eyes of our world trading partners are upon us, watching our inspection teams, scrutinizing our eradication and quarantine protocols and in many instances looking for a reason not to allow our commodities into their nations. Other nations need little imagination to use the presence of these pests and diseases to deny our market entry. Just 2 weeks ago, an inspection team from China made an official visit to ascertain our ability to control the spread of these diseases and the potential threats that existed to their nation.
In order for us to effectively wage this battle, the State and Federal Governments must be committed to the same goal, that of preventing the introduction and subsequent establishment of these costly pests and diseases. Governor Bush, Commissioner Crawford and the Florida legislature have made significant strides toward that goal.
All of us here today share a common interest in the future viability and prosperity of American agriculture. The issues before us are a direct and immediate threat to that prosperity. More than that, they represent a significant threat to the health and wellbeing of the American consumer and our environment. In Florida, we have allowed these issues to be viewed narrowly through the lens of agriculture. With little protest, we have tolerated the misguided myth that eradication dollars and detection efforts in our airport terminals and cruise ship embarkation points are deployed solely for the benefit of the farmer. Nothing could be further from the truth. Imagine the public outcry if the Africanized bees were to become established in urban neighborhoods and communities. In the last 2 years, Florida has had 12 such findings. Consider the reaction of the environmental community if the African heartwater tick were to become established in Florida devastating not just our beef and dairy industries, but 80 percent of the deer population.
The consequences of failing to address these threats are much broader than any one industry. We cannot allow agriculture alone to shoulder this burden. Invasives and exotics are more than just Florida's problem, more than just agriculture's problem, more than just America's problem. They are a threat to the health of our citizens and the safety of our food supply.
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We look forward to joining hands with the Federal Government in our continued effort to prevent their introduction. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Putnam appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Dr. Roberts.
STATEMENT OF MARTHA ROBERTS, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE AND CONSUMER SERVICES
Ms. ROBERTS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing here in Florida, because we think you have come to the battleground and we appreciate that. And we also appreciate deeply the sponsorship of Congressman Canady of the Plant Protection Act and all of the support for our agricultural budgets to fight this war from the Appropriations Committee, Congressman Boyd.
Agriculture in Florida is severely threatened, not only by the economic problems of the day, the environmental restrictions, but from the flood of plant and animal pests and disease coming into our State. We cannot win this battle alone and we are deeply appreciative of this hearing.
But do not mistake our comments on plant and animal pests and diseases as protectionism, because we are also very supportive of increased markets and we feel the future of agriculture is in future markets both here and abroad.
Chairman Putnam mentioned a Chinese delegation that was in our State a short time ago. In fact, they just left from California on Saturday returning to China. Their visit here was to ensure that we were not going to send them Medflies or any other pests that they did not have. So we have a vicious cycle. We have millions and millions of travelers and of international trade coming into the State that bring with them plant and animal pests and diseases that in turn enter the State and prevent us from having trade to go back to those individual nations.
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We take great pride that we are such a diverse agriculture here in the State. We grow commercially over 250 individual crops. We are the greatest diversity, second only to California. You have the bounty there in front of you, we are number one in citrus, we are number one in fresh tomatoes, number one in so many of the fruits and vegetables, number one in foliage plants. We have a huge livestock and horse and cattle and dairy industry in the State. But our very diversity is also a weakness in that with the diversity that we have, we have many commodities that are susceptible to the onslaught of the pests and diseases because we are the beacon for tourist trade and for travel, both domestic and international.
Florida also is a sentinel because we have 21 international ports and airports here in this State that represent a great susceptibility to importation of pests. Orlando International Airport is supposed to surpass 30 million travelers this year. Miami Airport welcomes over 8 million international passengers each year and leads the Nation in perishable agriculture shipments. International air cargo receives shipments from over 144 individual countries, both there in the port and in the airport in Miami.
We are under attack and our very diversity and our strong international trade and tourism are strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
Congressmen, we regret—as Chairman Putnam indicated, we have spent over $267 million in the last 5 years just to fight imported plant and animal pests and diseases. That can be divided into $57 million appropriated by our State legislature, $51.4 million from Federal funding, $20 million just in the university to try to research particular ways of fighting these pests or to research new methods of identification. And approximately $144 million was spent by our industry, not in lost business but because of specific mandated quarantine provisions that we in Government dictated to them. The agricultural industries of our State are expected to have lost in that 5 years alone $895 million in lost markets.
Some of the invaders we have had in the past, Asiatic citrus canker in 1995, Medfly in 1990, 1997, 1998 fall in that category. But others are the very first introductions in this country of the entire continental United States. Falling into that category would be the Asian citrus psyllid in 1996, oriental fruit fly outbreaks in 1995 and 1999, sweetpotato whitefly, pine shoot beetle, leatherleaf fern anthracnose in 1993, tropical soda apple in 1993 and several gemini viruses of tomatoes in 1997, just to name a few. Once they slip through the safety net, some pests have no chance of being eradicated, such as the brown citrus aphid and citrus leafminer.
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Again, we are not talking just about plant pests alone. We have an increasing diversity of livestock and animals. Regrettably we have a diversity of exotic animals. We are now finding such things as African hive beetle destroying our bee industry; different foreign ticks that have come into this State were discovered as coming in the exotic reptile trade from Africa and Asia. We now have 18 Florida counties that are contaminated and infested with specific foreign ticks that have come in since 1997. Some of these are the vectors of African heartwater disease that could destroy the livestock industry in this entire nation, as well as the wildlife industry. Some ticks were found just within the last 2 months infected with the rickettsia that can cause the disease. We are delighted we found no disease, but we are very fearful.
We are not all alone. We have joined with other specialty crop States of New Mexico, Arizona, California and Texas because we have the very same vulnerability and the very same problems. We represent within those five States, 25 percent of U.S. agriculture and 25 percent of the U.S. Congress. We are delighted that we have some sister States that are concerned with the very same plant and animal pest and disease problems as is Florida.
So in conclusion, I would just say to you that foreign invasive plant and animal pests and diseases are damaging our producers, they are restraining and preventing our trade, they are injuring our environment and our ecology and our human health with such parasites as cyclospora and other food borne illnesses being imported into this nation, and they are draining our budgets both here in the State and federally.
We must continue to work cooperatively back and forth with APHIS and our sister agencies, federally. We are very pleased with that cooperation. We are very pleased with the partnership with our universities. But we cannot maintain this battle at the level we are fighting it.
We are deeply appreciative of your attention and support and we welcome any questions.
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[The statement of Mr. Crawford appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you. I thank you for your testimony, I thank the panel. I did have a couple of questions. I would like to start with Dr. Schwalbe.
Obviously when you talk about Federal involvement, the bottom line on all these decisions that are made is budget, budget staffing levels in terms of our involvement. Can you give me some kind of idea as to what the staffing levels have done in a State like Florida over the last few years? It is obvious that we have increased the amount of produce going in and out, there has been a substantial increase in tourism, in people going in and out. How have we responded to that in terms of staffing levels and budget levels?
Mr. SCHWALBE. Mr. Chairman, I can provide very specific details to your question later on, but if I may just talk briefly about it in general terms. We have I think done a better job of acknowledging what the high risk activities are; that is, with the limited resources that we have, how can they be deployed to greatest advantage. And in so doing, we have perhaps robbed Peter to pay Paul.
Over the years, certainly our agricultural quarantine inspection resources have increased, perhaps not in accord with the increased level of travel and commerce and so forth, but I would note that during that period of time while agricultural quarantine inspection activities have done well, budget-wise, some of the other more traditional domestic activities of our agency have faltered. And in specific, I would refer to our capacity to have an infrastructure and the resources for early detection of new invasions, of our programs of biological control and pest management to respond to these new invaders which are not able to be eradicated.
And so I think while one looks broadly at our budget over the years, I do believe we have kept fairly good pace with our inspection—our inspection activities have kept fairly good pace with the workload around us, but it is these other facets of the safeguarding program that I think currently are in need of attention.
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Mr. POMBO. One question, in your statement you brought up the smuggling of commercial quantities of produce. Can you give me an example of that?
Mr. SCHWALBE. Certainly. There are examples, a very specific example, in the last 3 months, occurred on a U.S.-Mexican border with the discovery of a hidden shipment of Mexican avocados coming into the United States without compliance with the protocol that we have for importing this produce. We have had any number of significant seizures across the Canadian border, and interestingly, Canada is able—because of their indifference towards fruit fly pests, imports a great deal of tropical fruits and vegetables into their country without treatment. And it is a small matter then for a business person in the United States to load up a shipment of this produce and sneak it across the border and put it into our markets anywhere in these United States.
Now one would expect that you could counter that threat by putting a lot of people on the Canadian border and inspecting every piece of traffic that comes across, and you quickly realize that is not the answer to this problem. The answer to this problem is doing excellent intelligence gathering, finding out what these networks of business people are, and to strategically intervene in these activities.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Putnam, over the last few years, there has been a substantial amount of work that has been done in terms of moving toward normalizing trade relations with Cuba. I would like to get your response on how would that relate to the State of Florida in terms of foreign pests and diseases, the impact on the State of Florida if that were to happen.
Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The potential impact of the opening of the Cuban market is devastating. Because of the nature of our relations with them now, we have no understanding or knowledge of their protocol and procedures. We can only assume that they are woefully inadequate. The volume of trade that would result from the renormalization of trade relations with Cuba into Florida would be greatly—would greatly exceed any other impact on any other State, just because of our proximity to that market. And because of the similarities in climate, in growing regions, in crops between Cuba and Florida, then we also face a greater likelihood that the pests that are out of control in Cuba would immediately be introduced and become established in Florida without an extraordinary inspection and detection effort that would proceed any importation of agricultural commodities from that nation.
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Mr. POMBO. That is one message I think that really needs to get out. I know at the end of this last session, there was a real push put on and that is one of the issues that I do not believe was put on the table adequately, and that message does need to get out about what some of the concerns are.
Thank you. Mr. Canady.
Mr. CANADY. Thank you, Chairman Pombo.
I again want to thank all the members of this panel for being here. Your testimony has been very helpful to us in getting a broad perspective on this issue.
Mr. Schwalbe, I want to thank you and the other representatives of the Department of Agriculture for working together with us on the Plant Protection Act. Hopefully our efforts on that legislation will—no pun intended—bear fruit this year so that the Department will have more comprehensive authority for meeting the responsibilities that are on the Department now. And I appreciate your ongoing work on that.
I do want to ask you one question that relates to a subject that has come up about the visit from the officials from China. That is, of course, a very important issue to Florida citrus growers, it is also important to citrus growers in California and I wonder if you could give us an update on what the final discussions were like with the Chinese before they departed, whether we in fact have seen the approval of final protocols for the shipment of citrus or whether we have still got more work to do on that. That is related to the broader topic that we are talking about here today and it is of some immediate interest.
Mr. SCHWALBE. Thank you, sir.
I checked on that about 9:30 this morning, so I would have the latest possible information for you because I know there is a tremendous interest in this topic.
I would like to say that the State cooperators from the States that the Chinese delegation visited did just an outstanding job of presenting their programs, making the case and so forth. I have to report to you that we do not have a final answer from the Chinese, we did not frankly expect to have one. They do not tend to do business in that way, but the visit was very positive. Under Secretary Dunn himself visited with them in California on Friday afternoon, so I think we put our best possible foot forward and our country and our State cooperators have a great deal to be proud of in the programs that they conduct to deal with these pests that China is worried about. And so I am confident that—and we are all optimistic that we will receive an affirmative response back from them shortly.
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We are of the belief that they may need to ask a question or two, which we will need to clarify and when we get through that procedure, hopefully we can be in business.
Mr. CANADY. Thank you very much. I do not have any more questions, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. POMBO. Mr. Boyd.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I have several questions.
First of all, I want to say before I ask the questions, that I am delighted that the three of you are here. Dr. Martha Roberts, I have known for many, many, many years and your service to this State and to the agricultural industry is well recognized and we are grateful to you for all the years that you have given us. Thank you very much.
And you have sitting beside you a young man who probably will serve like you have, for many, many years. At least some of us hope he will.
And Dr. Schwalbe, I have not had a chance to interact with you previously, but I look forward to that opportunity.
Congressman Pombo asked earlier about adequate resources. I think he asked the question of you. I would just like—for the record, the information that I have is that the part of your budget that has responsibility for these invasive pests, the inspection system, if you will, back in 1995, was about $443 million; and in 1999—now this is raw dollars—in 1999, the Congress allocated $425 million. That is less raw dollars in a scenario where obviously there are some inflationary costs. But on top of that, what has happened in terms of the exponential growth of trade and travel and the pressure that has been put on these ports and the job that they should be doing. I say that to open to show that this Congress has not done what it should do. Hopefully we can turn that around. We, as you know, in the current fiscal year, have increased that number and we are going to make every attempt to continue to increase it.
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Mr. Schwalbe, you outlined in your comments something—two points that I picked up on. One was that first of all, your responsibility, our responsibility as a government, is to keep the pests out. Now we know we are not going to always win that battle, we know that we are going to have pests come here from time to time. The second point is that once those pests are introduced here, that we have the ability and the resources and the knowledge to deal with it quickly and effectively to prevent spread. And I really want to deal with that second part because I think we have not done the job that we should have done and I think that is evident by the fact that we have a catastrophic—potentially a catastrophic situation going on now with citrus canker.
Citrus canker honestly came here 5 years ago into this State. You know, some of us are wondering now what has happened in the last 5 years, why we have not been more attentive to dealing with this issue.
I have in my hand a report that is an action plan for citrus canker. Now on the bottom of it, it says action plan for citrus canker, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Division of Plant Industries, and USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. I assume this is a document put together in concert between the two agencies.
Mr. SCHWALBE. Correct.
Mr. BOYD. In that document on pages 6 and 7, it describes the survey procedures, what is to be surveyed and how it is to be surveyed in a situation where you have a pest that has been introduced.
And my question really goes to Dr. Roberts and Mr. Schwalbe. What is the protocol for chain of command, if you will, once we discover a pest like citrus canker here? What is the protocol, who is in charge, who works for who, on the ground what kind of teams do we have in place when that happens?
Ms. ROBERTS. Congressman Boyd, I would offer that it is a joint State-Federal project and we are delighted, since we knew some questions would come up in that regard, that we have available for you Deputy Commissioner Craig Meyer, who is over that program now, as well as Richard Gaskeller, our division director for the Division of Plant Industry, and Connie Ryherd, deputy, the assistant director, who was here with the Chinese delegation and we also sent out to California to be there at that final meeting. So they are all three here to address any specific questions. But it is a joint State-Federal partnership. The action plan is there to give the guidance as to the procedures that should be followed in attacking and aggressively fighting to eradicate citrus canker in the quarantine zones that are established when it is detected.
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So if I may, any specific questions on that, we have Deputy Commissioner Meyer.
Mr. BOYD. Great. Well, what I am trying to get at—and I went through this—I come from a different part of the State where we are not able to grow citrus, we grow some other crops. And we have been through some eradication procedures with, for instance, the boll weevil in the cotton. And I know it was a State/Federal, but it seems to be—I assume the model is the same, that actually USDA is in charge on the ground, is that—or do you have a team that works together or how does that work, Mr. Schwalbe?
Mr. SCHWALBE. Let me address that if I may.
We always work in partnership with our State cooperators regardless of the program we are involved in. And sometimes down to the county and local levels, because that is the best way to get work done. I will say that it is the responsibility of APHIS to have the battle plan pulled together, to see to it that the right resourcing is done and that we have the appropriate Federal engagement so that interstate and international regulatory issues can be properly dealt with.
I think when we look at the citrus canker program, we are dealing with, if I may refer to it as a bit of an outlier from the normal kinds of invasions that we encounter. It is a very difficult pest to contend with. Our technology for dealing with it is pathetic and its movement is subject so much to the vagaries of weather and all other sorts of means of spread. So it is an extremely difficult issue to deal with.
I think if we were to look at some of these other more positive examples with what I hope will be a positive outcome from this invasion of plum pox virus up in Pennsylvania, that we see this thing early, we have it resourced well from the beginning and we can get the proper type of program in place.
Citrus canker has a history to it in this country that has complicated our response. There were early uncertainties about the diagnosis and the actual identification of the biotype that was causing problems and so forth. But I think that our worst enemy with citrus canker is the fact that you cannot tell it is there until you walk up to a tree and see its evidence.
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Mr. BOYD. But that is something we have known for a long time. I guess the question we are asking, or I am trying to find out now is who do our industry folks look to, do we look to the USDA and the Florida Department—who do we hold accountable, who do we hold responsible for making the decisions to get done? And I think I am hearing you say both Federal and State and we welcome Craig Meyer to the podium.
Mr. POMBO. Dr. Roberts, if you have somebody that is able to answer the question, I would welcome them up to the panel, and sir, if you can identify yourself for the record.
Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman, my name is Craig Meyer, I am Deputy Commissioner of Agriculture. My principal area within the Department of Agriculture of the State of Florida is the eradication of plant diseases and the number one disease on our radar scope right now is our citrus canker program. So I am involved with the citrus canker program daily.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. BOYD. May I continue?
Mr. POMBO. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We have all followed the spread of the citrus canker and, you know, I read from the page in your action plan on page 6, it talks about buffer areas, for instance, in the survey section. You have one set of guidelines for quarantine areas, another set of guidelines for non-quarantine areas, buffer areas, and I have also read that the lime areas, the lime groves, which now as I understand it, about 30 percent of the groves, lime groves, in that Homestead area, have been detected with citrus canker.
Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir, that is correct.
Mr. BOYD. Those have not been inspected in 3 years, or since the outbreak of canker or what—help us here. How can we get to the position where we are finding canker in every grove we go in, if we have a good protocol, a good action plan in place that is supposed to help us prevent the spread of that? That is where I am going. I am just trying to get some information here.
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Mr. MEYER. May I respond, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. POMBO. Yes.
Mr. MEYER. Mr. Boyd, essentially—and I am not sure of the last date that the inspectors were down in the lime grove area—let me start and answer it this way, the general movement of the disease through Dade County has been from the southwest to the northeast. That is the prevailing weather pattern through Dade County and our surveys and our research have confirmed—the surveys have confirmed the research that the scientists have done, which indicate that canker generally moves by weather in the Dade County and Broward County areas from the southwest to the northeast. We had one or two small outbreaks identified in the southern area, not in the lime groves but near the lime groves. We acted quickly on those, those were cases of plant material and/or tools being moved south.
Again, I can find out and get back to you on what the exact date of the last survey in the lime groves was.
Following last fall's tropical storm events of which there were three major ones, the data was sent to Dr. Gotwald, who is with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and who is one of the world's leading experts on citrus canker. Dr. Gotwald analyzed the data and reported back to our Citrus Canker Technical Advisory Committee, which consists not only of State officials, but USDA officials, industry representatives and scientific representatives. Dr. Gotwald reported back to us that based on his analysis of the wind patterns throughout the Dade and Broward areas as a result of the three tropical storm events, that we would, beginning in late December or early January find citrus canker in the lime grove areas. We went down there, we looked, we found it.
Mr. BOYD. Well I think I understand. You said from southwest to northeast?
Mr. MEYER. Yes, sir, that is the principal movement of—the original infestation as identified by the scientists occurred in the Westchester area which is southwest of the Miami International Airport and it has been moving northeast since that find.
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Mr. BOYD. Right.
Mr. MEYER. The last time that we surveyed lime groves in the Dade County, Homestead, Florida City area was in the months of February and March of last year, which would be consistent with our protocol for a quarantine area.
Mr. BOYD. Well, it might be time to reconsider that, particularly if you are going by some hard and fast rule about southwest to northeast, because that would put it in the Atlantic Ocean pretty quickly and we are getting outbreaks all over the other parts of the State, south and west instead of north and east.
But you know, I guess what I am going to ask you all to do is, you might want to revisit your action plan in light of the things that have happened and figure out whether we think we are following an action plan properly and if we have the proper things in the action plan.
For instance, in the action plan, you have—you define buffer areas as a one square mile around the quarantine area. And also any other areas that might be considered high risk for disease spread based on epidemiology and storm predictions, which you just addressed.
And those are to be—citrus groves are to be inspected every 120 days. That is every what, 4 months. So that would be three times a year. Even in non-quarantine areas. And I think that is where we are now, we have got to consider the whole State a potential risk. You have protocol in there that outlines that they should be inspected on some regular basis. And I just—I mean if I was in this industry, I would be extremely concerned about the viability and the future of my ability to stay in business. And I just wanted you to know, Dr. Roberts and Mr. Schwalbe, that we will work with you and help any way we can, but we—I see some inherent problems in this action plan, the way it is written and maybe whether it is being followed or not.
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Mr. Chairman, that is really all I have.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Dr. Roberts.
Ms. ROBERTS. Mr. Chairman, if I might just respond briefly on that. I think the discussion of the last few minutes highlights the fearful situation that we are in. We are spending $50 million to $60 million a year on citrus canker alone. Each one of these other pests that we documented in the table that we gave you that have been introduced to Florida just in the last 5 years, we could spend anywhere from $5 million to $100 million on each individual pest. That is not even adding in the 18 counties now in which we have been invaded with these foreign ticks. If we quickly added up what it would take to fight each one of these invasive plant and animal pest and diseases dramatically and intensively—and this citrus canker program is a very dramatic and intensive program—but if we added up each individual one, I do not think that State legislatures or federally, Congress, could appropriate sufficient dollars to do what we really need to do to totally get rid of each and every one of these diseases.
I think the citrus canker program is a dramatic, intensive eradication effort and we welcome any comments relative to areas that it should be reviewed. But I think this whole hearing and the list we have given you intensifies and dramatically shines a spotlight and a focus on this never-ending drain on our State and Federal budget when these pests and diseases enter this nation.
Mr. BOYD. Mr. Chairman, if I might?
Mr. POMBO. Yes.
Mr. BOYD. I agree with you. And I think Representative Putnam has, in his presentation, outlined the fact that it is really not totally the concern of just agriculture, it is all segments of our society, whether it be the bee, the killer bee; you know, the heartwater disease—which I know you guys were on top of immediately and I assume that you are putting an action plan in place to deal with that—has the ability to totally destroy our livestock industry in the State.
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So I understand the magnitude of the problems that we face, but when we do get an outbreak, we have to act more swiftly and precisely and decisively, I believe.
Mr. POMBO. Well, I thank the panel for your testimony and for the questions. Before I excuse you, I just have to say that everybody in agriculture are free traders, they talk about having the ability to chase world markets and that being a big part of the future of agriculture. But as part of that, there are problems like this that come up and we have to address this part. Dr. Roberts, you and I have had a chance to talk before about this particular problem, the amount of money that the State of Florida has put into eradication efforts, the amount of money that the Federal Government has put into it, and from the testimony we are receiving today, it is a drop in the bucket as to what is really needed, and we are just talking about Florida, not considering some of the impacts on some of the other States that you mentioned are working with you. It is an immense problem that is going to take an immense amount of money to solve, or at least keep ahead of.
Before we get too far down this road, I think we had better stop and look at the money that is needed to actually do the job because we are never going to keep up with it.
But I thank you for your testimony. I will excuse this panel.
I would like to call up our second panel. We have Mr. Carl Loop, Mr. Andrew LaVigne, Mr. Ben Bolusky, Mr. Michael Stuart, Mr. Jay Taylor, Mr. Craig Wheeling, Dr. Harold Browning and Mr. Lindsay Raley.
It looks like we have got everybody here. Mr. Loop, I am going to start with you. I think you heard the explanation of your oral testimony. We will give you 5 minutes for that. Your entire testimony obviously will be included in the record, but if you are ready, you can begin.
STATEMENT OF CARL B. LOOP, JR., PRESIDENT, FLORIDA FARM BUREAU
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Mr. LOOP. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the panel. It is good to have you here and have you in south Florida this morning.
My name is Carl Loop, I am a nurseryman from Jacksonville and president of the Florida Farm Bureau. I would like to thank the committee for having this field hearing in Florida. The issue of invasive species is especially important to Florida's agricultural industry, our members and our citizens of the State.
Florida has battled invasive pests over a century, whether it was Medfly in citrus and vegetables, screw worms in livestock or even water hyacinths in our public waterways, it has been a costly and time-consuming endeavor.
Our members have gone on record with the following policy statement, and I quote:
Since new and exotic pests have had such an adverse environmental and economic impact on agriculture and the citizens of Florida, we should maintain an effective State-Federal pest exclusion and control program. Specific steps should be taken to:
(1) Assure that USDA/APHIS develop and maintain effective pest exclusion programs at ports of entry.
(2) Assure that Congress appropriates USDA/APHIS/AQI user fee funding at the maximum level.
(3) Ensure that USDA/APHIS fill vacant positions in a timely manner to maintain effective exclusion programs.
(4) Guarantee the development and maintenance of Federal/State programs that would exclude and/or control pests.
!We support strengthening of Quarantine 37 and other plant import regulations that will continue efforts to increase enforcement of these regulations as a means of limiting introduction of exotic pests into the United States where environmental regulations limit control methods.
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I would like to break my comments this morning into three parts—the past history, the present issues and the future outlook.
Prior to 1900, there were very few pest control measures available to farmers. New plants or animals were introduced with no oversight or concern about hitch-hiking pests. But on the positive, travel was often slow and tedious and it was not the problem that it is now.
However, as trade and tourism increased, along with the speed and convenience of travel, we saw more frequent outbreaks and a new factor came to bear. The cost of eradication now became a major concern for widespread infestations.
A classic example is that of the Caribbean fruit fly. In the 1950's, a major infestation was found in our citrus producing areas. By 1964, USDA/APHIS determined that the CaribFly would never be a major economic pest for our citrus industry. Thirty-five years later, the CaribFly is endemic to Florida and is a major pest for fresh citrus in Florida. Florida growers literally spend millions of dollars each year to meet the export protocol. Without the Federal Government as a partner, State eradication efforts are doomed to fail.
As a nurseryman, I can personally tell you the devastating effect that a small pest such as leaf miner can bring to an operation. In the early 1980's, a leaf miner was brought into Florida on Colombian cut flowers. This pest attacked the chrysanthemum crop and made the crop unmarketable. It took several years to get that pest under control and during that time, I thought we may not be able to continue producing mums in Florida. This pest also devastated the celery industry. Our industry literally lost millions because of this pest, invested millions to get new products developed to have effective control, and we continue to pay to keep it out of crops.
There are many other horror stories or examples that I could give, but the reality is that we must learn from our mistakes and experiences and move forward.
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Well, where do we go from here? We are supportive of the blue ribbon stakeholder committee's ''Safeguarding American Plant Resources.'' It is our hope that USDA/APHIS will restructure across the plant and animal sectors to develop a more proactive, visionary agency. At times, we are concerned that USDA/APHIS serves two masters—protecting American plant and animal resources while expediting trade. Our members often feel that they are sacrificed on the altar of trade by their government. We feel that there must be a strong commitment for sanitary and phytosanitary programs for imports. While government cannot offer trade protection, our growers must be protected from offshore pests. After all, this is not just an agricultural issue, it is an issue that touches every U.S. citizen.
We are appreciative of the President, that he has recognized the impact of invasives and addressed them through a Presidential Executive Order. There are several issues at work that cause us some concern. First, this issue of invasive plants is a nationwide concern for public and private lands. We feel that this will be perceived only as a western public lands issue. Because of this, we do feel that the Executive Order should be a part of any legislation. We are also fearful that the debate may move to an effort to only allow native species on public lands. In the southeast, bahai grass is non-indigenous and can be classed as invasive. This species is an important forage crop and is used extensively to establish road right-of-ways and literally covers millions of acres in the south.
Finally, I would like to talk about the State and Federal coordination of the various phases of invasive pests surveillance/exclusion programs. We are very proud of both the Florida Department of Agriculture program and the USDA program in Florida. We have found both agencies to be open and receptive to industry input. We believe we truly are a model of how the system should work. Unfortunately, sometimes decisions are made in Washington based on budget or other considerations. If the Commodity Credit Corporation funds cannot be accessed, then we need to consider the development of an invasive pest trust fund.
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Florida growers do not ask for subsidies and are willing to meet the free trade market head on. What they do ask their government for is protection against unwanted invasive pests by having strong exclusion, detection and eradication programs. We are willing to shoulder our responsible, but do not handicap us by having ineffective programs.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Loop appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you, sir.
Mr. LaVigne.
STATEMENT OF ANDREW W. LAVIGNE, EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT AND CEO, FLORIDA CITRUS MUTUAL
Mr. LAVIGNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am Andy LaVigne, executive vice-president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, a trade association that represents more than 11,500 Florida citrus growers. As you mentioned, I have prepared a statement and will submit that to the record and attempt to summarize my comments for you today.
We are extremely pleased, as everyone at this table is, and in this room, that you have chosen to come to Florida to see some of the problems that we address on a daily basis. The citrus industry is concerned with the potential for the introduction of invasive pests and diseases that could ultimately affect our ability to compete in today's global marketplace.
For your information, the Florida citrus industry encompasses more than 850,000 acres of planted citrus with a farm gate value of $1.2 billion and an overall economic value to the State's economy of more than $8 billion. The industry employs more than 140,000 people across the State and we produce fresh and processed product that is consumed throughout the world. Florida is the second largest producer of oranges in the world and produces 76.1 percent of the U.S. orange crop. We also produce 77 percent of the U.S. grapefruit and 47 percent of the world's grapefruit supply.
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Mr. Chairman, I mention this because the citrus community is made up of several generations of growers who have made extensive capital investments in order to produce a healthy and wholesome product. It is their way of life. Unfortunately, as we have seen over the last several years, the introduction and infestation of a disease such as Asiatic citrus canker can literally wipe out that investment and family history overnight.
Mr. Chairman, much like your home State of California, Florida's fruit and vegetable industry is under attack. Over the last 2 years alone, we have experienced infestations of Mediterranean fruit fly, Oriental fruit fly, and Asiatic Citrus Canker. This is in addition to the other pests and plant diseases that are indigenous now in the State of Florida—citrus tristeza virus, brown citrus aphid, melaleuca, Brazilian pepper. And as Dr. Roberts said, the list goes on and on.
We know that the growth in trade in Florida will continue with our ports and our airports, and that is an issue that we have to deal with. We will continue to be a large cargo and import State in this global marketplace and we will be the doorway for many industries bringing product into this State. However, we realize that trade and travel into Florida, as I mentioned, will continue, but we also realize that there must be a fundamental change in the way that our government interdicts and eradicates pests and diseases that are introduced into this country.
If the trend we have seen in the last couple of years continues, infestations will start in urban areas of the State and move to the agriculture production areas. This is where the change needs to occur. Eradication efforts in the future must be swift and strategic and effective.
As Congressman Boyd mentioned, time is of the essence in these situations. We have seen, in the case of citrus canker in south Florida, allowing the process to be extended because of politics,
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public pressure and other reasons has caused the problem to move from a 15 square mile eradication program to one that today impacts over 600 square miles of the urban area of Dade County, close to 1,000 acres of lime groves in Dade County, close to 1,000 acres of citrus production in four counties throughout the State, not only painfully extending the program for the foreseeable future, but also dramatically increasing the cost per eradication.
A quick, decisive eradication program in 1995 would have been painful at that time, but we would not have the awesome task we have before us today in the eradication efforts of citrus canker.
Also, the State and Federal Government must incorporate a public education component into its interdiction and eradication programs. The public must understand that the long-term viability of the agriculture industry is at stake, as well as the urban communities. Many of these pests and diseases infest the trees and urban canopies of our cities in the canopies they enjoy today. Many of our growers are working to implement decontamination procedures and processes—these are expensive procedures that you are not compensated for—in an effort to ensure or try to ensure that canker is not spread to your groves, but as we have seen in the south Florida situation in some of the citrus producing areas, if your neighbor does not take those efforts, you could just as easily lose your crop as well.
We also need to work extensively to ensure that interdiction occurs before the pest reaches U.S. soil. Once it reaches U.S. soil, it becomes an eradication effort, gets costly and the public becomes involved and it becomes very, very difficult.
I will also add our support for the implementation of the parts or as much of the 300-plus recommendations that are included in the Safeguarding Report, and passage of Congressman Canady's legislation, H.R. 1504, the Plant Protection Act.
We appreciate you extending us the opportunity to provide insight into the concerns that the Florida citrus industry has in the battle against imported pests and diseases. We stand ready to support your efforts to pass H.R. 1504 before the close of this legislative session and to begin implementing the recommendations in the Safeguarding American Plant Resources Report.
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The successful movement of these initiatives will greatly help protect and ensure the long-term viability of the Florida citrus industry.
Thank you for your continued support.
[The prepared statement of Mr. LaVigne appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Bolusky.
STATEMENT OF BEN BOLUSKY, EXECUTIVE VICE-PRESIDENT, FLORIDA NURSERYMEN & GROWERS ASSOCIATION
Mr. BOLUSKY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a pleasure to be with you and Congressman Canady and Congressman Boyd this morning. I am Ben Bolusky, executive vice-president of the Florida Nurserymen & Growers Association. We are very pleased you are here in Florida to review the harmful effects of invasive species on agriculture. I am especially pleased to testify not only on behalf of the Florida Nurserymen & Growers Association, but also my alma mater, if you will, the American Nursery & Landscape Association, based in our Nation's capital.
FNGA represents Florida's leading 1,900 production nurseries, landscape firms, retail garden centers and horticultural suppliers. While California is the nation's largest nursery production State, Florida is the second largest, with nursery growers' farm gate sales estimated just shy of $1.5 billion in 1997. Florida is the nation's largest producer of foliage or indoor house plants. As one of the three largest segments of agriculture in Florida, the nursery and landscape industry employs approximately 140,000 workers in the Sunshine State and makes a $5.4 billion impact on Florida's economy.
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The nursery and greenhouse industry is an exciting success story in American agriculture. According to USDA's economic research service, nursery and greenhouse operations had estimated sales in 1998 nationwide in excess of $12 billion farm gate. Grower cash receipts from nursery and greenhouse sales have grown steadily over the last two decades and are now increasing at approximately $500 million per year. To continue growing and thriving, the nursery industry needs the Federal Government's help in safeguarding our industry and the other segments of agriculture from invasive plant pests.
Nursery growers produce a vast array of plant varieties, so when a foreign plant pest slips through the pest exclusion safety net, it almost always finds a niche that harms some aspect of our industry. Once a pest does become established, our industry often faces market disrupting quarantines as well as new production challenges. Florida is particularly vulnerable, given its subtropical climate and the level of foreign trade and travel entering the State. Recognized as a sentinel area for pest introduction and establishment, Florida needs to be protected. California is certainly in a very similar situation.
Given these unique concerns, the industry was pleased to see APHIS seek the National Plant Board's help in conducting a review of efforts to exclude, detect and respond to pest and weed threats. ANLA's senior director of government relations co-chaired that safeguarding review and we are deeply committed to implementation of its roughly 300 recommendations.
We support a recently proposed rule by APHIS to increase the user fees levied on foreign trade and commerce. These fees fund most of the pest exclusion activities that occur at airports and ports of arrival collectively called agricultural quarantine inspection. A Federal appropriation supplements the user fee generated amount. The proposed fee increase is needed to adequately fund these activities.
More generally, the safeguarding review identified a number of needed actions to ensure that the APHIS plant safeguarding system is effective, science-based, not distorted by political considerations and implemented in an environment of open and meaningful collaboration. We are encouraged APHIS is approaching implementation of the review very seriously. We also encourage Congress to maintain periodic oversight to ensure this commitment continues.
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Mr. Chairman, we respectfully request your support for restoration of funds needed to maintain critical domestic quarantine programs, most notably the recent imported fire ant, which is prevalent in Florida, throughout the southern States, and recently discovered in California. APHIS funding for the imported fire ant quarantine was virtually eliminated for the current fiscal year. The cost of implementing this quarantine, vital to slowing the spread of the serious human health and agricultural pest, has been shared historically by APHIS, its State cooperators, and the regulated industry. Elimination of the Federal share unfairly shifts the funding burden for pest survey and regulatory work to the States and industry alone, despite the clear Federal objective of protecting uninfested areas from this pest. The Federal quarantine also establishes a uniform, consistent set of rules for Florida's producers and those in other infested States, to certify and ship their product. Again, we request your help in ensuring a continued Federal role.
We have been active members of the coalition seeking passage of a Plant Protection Act since a consensus building effort was initiated back in the mid–1990's. The time for enactment has come. Congressman Canady's bill, H.R. 1504, enactment will not outright solve all of our invasive pest problems, but will start us on the journey toward a more coherent and effective U.S. pest safeguarding system. In fact, passage of the bill is the number one recommendation of the safeguarding review.
New trading patterns pose new and dangerous risks. APHIS and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and its Division of Plant Industries must be armed with a menu of effective pest detection, prevention and eradication and other response programs, to guard against the arrival and combat the effects of invasive plant pests and noxious weeds.
While the main thrust of this legislation is to streamline and clarify existing authorities, H.R. 1504 would strategically enhance certain APHIS authorities. We support these enhancements, particularly three:
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(1) A stronger framework for managing noxious weeds. Noxious weeds pose the same production headaches for nursery growers as for other farmers. Nurseries perhaps spend more on weed control than any other category of pest management. Invasive plants have become a serious problem in some natural areas of Florida. I am pleased to report to this subcommittee that last year FNGA issued a call to Florida nursery growers to phase out production, sale and use of 11 commercially grown plant species thought to be invasive here in this State.
One of the other areas to enhance APHIS authority are to enhance penalty authority. On that note, civil penalties that may be assessed in the case of smuggling and other quarantine violations are so low as to be viewed as nothing more than perhaps the cost of doing business if caught. H.R. 1504 would augment civil penalty authority to a level where potential penalties could serve as a deterrent to illegal activity that threatens U.S. plant resources
And the third point, a balanced approach to State preemption. Under current law, when USDA promulgates quarantine regulations for a specific invasive pest, States are properly preempted from exceeding those Federal requirements. However, States are free to impose their own rules when no Federal rules exist. This historic approach has generally offered a balance between a fair and level playing field for both trade and States' rights. That balance is carried forward in H.R. 1504 with a measure of added flexibility for the States. The bill would allow USDA to recognize a special need of a locality, State or States for protection beyond that of a Federal rule. Under this new flexibility, California, Florida or other States could petition for the right to exceed the requirements of a Federal quarantine provided such special need is science-based. Plant protection and pest safeguarding are shared Federal/State responsibilities that can only succeed with close cooperation. H.R. 1504 advances the framework for cooperative efforts and we congratulate Congressman Canady for his leadership in introducing the bill.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the continued growth and success of the U.S. nursery industry, and indeed all of agriculture, depends on our collective ability to achieve plant protection, pest safeguarding and export facilitation goals. A strong and relevant USDA contribution to the overall pest safeguarding effort is critical. The Florida Nurserymen & Growers Association and the American Nursery & Landscape Association are both confident that H.R. 1504 will better position APHIS, the California Department of Food and Agriculture, Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and other State partners to fulfill their increasingly challenging pest safeguarding roles.
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Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your tremendous leadership on this and other issues that are of critical importance to the nursery industry.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolusky appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Stuart.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL J. STUART, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA FRUIT & VEGETABLE ASSOCIATION
Mr. STUART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, good morning. Perhaps at this point in time, I should just say ditto and move on because quite frankly in listening to the earlier panel and the first three members of this panel, virtually everything has been said, so I will not try and go back through and be too repetitive. But what I would like to do is just briefly summarize a couple of the key points in our testimony and then move on to the other witnesses.
My name is Mike Stuart, I am the president of the Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association and we greatly appreciate you taking the time, Chairman Pombo, to come to Florida and review this issue with us. Obviously it is a critical issue for Florida agriculture and all of American agriculture. I also want to thank Representative Canady for his tremendous leadership in this area and his sponsorship of the Plant Protection Act, as well as his leadership on a whole variety of issues facing Florida agriculture over the last 8 years. We are going to dearly miss you in Congress.
Representative Boyd, I specifically want to thank you for all your tremendous support, particularly in the appropriations process during this last year and working very hard to get some of the dollars back for our industry for citrus canker. Your hard work is extremely well appreciate. Thank you very much.
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I think all of you know, Florida growers are on the front line of this battle and you are going to hear from a couple of growers here in just a minute. What I am extremely concerned about, quite frankly, is that we are losing that battle and if we do not drastically change the way we do business, ultimately we are going to lose the war. It is as simple as that.
You have heard many times before this morning about the fact that just in the past 5 years, the State, the Federal Government and industry has incurred well over $250 million in control and eradication costs. The industry has lost upwards of $900 million in lost sales and while canker and Medfly are obviously two of the pests that garner most of the attention, there is a whole laundry list of other pests that our industry has been facing—thrips palmi, sweetpotato whitefly, tomato yellow leaf curl virus, brown citrus aphid, citrus leaf miner, the list goes on and on. The causes for all of this are well documented and again, we have heard some of that here this morning.
Increased trade. Trade in fruits and vegetables coming into the United States has doubled since NAFTA has been put into place and the projection is that it will continue to double every 5 years for the foreseeable future. Tourism is at an all time high. We had 48 million visitors come into Florida last year. That is three times the population of the entire State coming in as visitors, either by airplane, through seaports or through highways.
As Chuck Schwalbe mentioned earlier, smuggling has also been identified as a major pathway of pests coming into not only Florida, but throughout the country. And as has been mentioned, the fines that APHIS has to try and control this type of smuggling is so insignificant as to be really nothing more than a cost of doing business for someone who would import a load of say longan from southeast Asia that might be worth $25,000 or $30,000—a $500 fine is absolutely meaningless. All of these issues obviously combine to put the pressure on this industry that we are currently facing.
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There have been two reports. One has been mentioned here numerous times this morning and I will not spend too much time on it, but back in 1997, as a result of a request from Congress, the General Accounting Office did a review of APHIS and looked extensively at their operations, both domestically and internationally and while it recognized the fact that Congress, in terms of total dollars, including user fees, had actually increased the dollars going to pest exclusion and detection and eradication activities, it certainly was not keeping pace with the tremendous increases that we have been seeing obviously in trade and in tourism coming into the United States. So obviously, I think we have got two reports that I think serve as a tremendous foundation for looking at some avenues to improve what we are doing, both at APHIS and at the State level.
The Safeguarding American Plant Resources report, I have to congratulate APHIS in working so cooperatively with the National Plant Board in putting all this together. This was really a joint effort of some interests up on Capitol Hill as well as within the Department of doing a complete review of everything it is doing in the plant safeguarding area. And I think it is an outstanding report. There are 307 recommendations in it that really cover the gamut of everything that APHIS does and I think if we start looking through that report working cooperatively with the industry, the State and APHIS as well as Congress in trying to get those recommendations implemented, I think we will go a long way towards attacking some of these issues.
Some of the solutions have been well documented here this morning and I think it just bears a little bit of repetition to go over them quickly. Certainly the implementation of the recommendations in the safeguarding report ought to be at the top of the list. And of course, number one among those recommendations is passage of the Plant Protection Act. Congressman Canady, you have been a tremendous leader in this issue. We have some industry issues that we need to resolve with it and we stand ready to work closely with you and your staff and the other members of the committee to try and get that done.
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More resources are obviously needed. I would like to make a point of strongly advocating that all of the user fee dollars that are entitled to come into the agricultural quarantine and inspection program be appropriated and allocated to that program. We are losing millions of dollars on an annual basis—I should not say millions—hundreds of thousands of dollars potentially in lost revenues for that program that are not being appropriated. Public education, as Andy LaVigne mentioned, is extremely important. Quite frankly, if you go into countries like New Zealand and Australia and other countries that are extremely concerned about pests, they, quite frankly, do a better job than we do in notifying the public about the risks of importing or bringing contraband fruits and vegetables into the country.
Finally, industry support I think is necessary. We are working very closely with two of the national organizations right now to set up a plant safeguarding coalition that is designed to work with the Department of Agriculture, work with all of you up on Capitol Hill, as well as the industry around the country to try and implement some of these recommendations in the safeguarding report, get the Plant Protection Act passed and also get the much needed funding for APHIS for some of its interdiction activities.
My final point I would like to make this morning is that everyone has a stake in this issue. It is not just producers, it is not just the regulatory agencies. Consumers have a major stake in all of this, the environment is very much at play here and I think it is incumbent upon all of us to keep that in mind as we move forward. Winning this battle will require a stronger effort and I think it is going to need to be a cooperative effort among all of us.
Again, we appreciate your efforts and, Chairman Pombo, particularly appreciate your time and efforts in coming to Florida. Thank you.
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stuart appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
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Mr. Taylor.
STATEMENT OF R.J. TAYLOR, PRESIDENT, FLORIDA TOMATO EXCHANGE
Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thought it appropriate that the red light is right in front of me. [Laughter.]
Being an actual farmer, being a tomato farmer, not a representative of tomato, even though that is what I am doing today, I can make mine extremely brief. My testimony has been prepared and handed in ahead of time, you have benefit of that.
I want to thank all three of you for being here and being interested. It is a very timely and important subject to be here on. I only wish the weather was better for Mr. Pombo to come and visit our State.
Mr. POMBO. This is not bad. You should be in Washington, DC right now.
Mr. TAYLOR. That is right.
I represent the Florida Tomato Exchange, which in fact represents, through the shippers of tomatoes across our State, all of the growers in the State of Florida for fresh market tomatoes, not processing tomatoes. We have been under the gun in the past few years, under a lot of different things, most notably NAFTA and the poor implementation of safeguards within that agreement that were designed to protect American farmers.
We are losing chemicals, crop protection chemicals, every year, to sunset that our competitors in foreign countries continue to use and then import their fruits and vegetables into the United States with no penalty.
So here we go with a whole other subject, invasive pests. Personally, I have operated my business under a Medfly quarantine, I have seen my spray bills go up as much as $400 an acre trying to combat the sweetpotato whitefly. Up in Mr. Boyd's neighborhood, up around Quincy, FL, in the past couple of years, it has been absolutely horrible.
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I mean, Mr. Pombo, growing a crop of tomatoes out in your district is about $1,200. I have got a spray bill specifically for one pest of a quarter of that total cost of growing. So it is an extremely important subject.
A couple of things that we would like to point out. Mike Dunn, the Under Secretary for USDA, has admitted that this is a very serious problem, that we have increased risk of introducing agricultural pests into the United States, pests that could cost billions of dollars of harm to American agriculture.
Now we feel that one reason that this is occurring is that APHIS has changed to a new system of sorts. It is a systems approach and they are accepting a new level of risk, an acceptable level of risk. Now as a farmer, you know, we are big into IPM, integrated pest management. I know you are probably familiar with that, Mr. Chairman. And there are certain times and certain things where the only acceptable level of risk is zero tolerance. And as far as American agriculture is concerned, I think that is something that we have to look closely at, we have to look hard. The pressures that are on our citrus industry today with the citrus canker—this gentleman you are going to hear from next is a horror story—there is no acceptable level of risk. You know, we have to put the resources and the attention there that needs to be.
We want to make sure to reiterate what other people have said and what I hope further panelists will say as well, in that we need to support Mr. Canady's bill before Congress in anything that we can do. And I volunteer our industry, anything that we can do to help prod that along and to get it through Congress and the Senate, we would be more than happy to do.
We understand that APHIS's counterparts here in Florida and other States are our first and our last line of defense and we can only go to you, the people with their hands on the pocketbook to make sure that they have the resources and the will to go out and do what is needed to be done to try to keep some of the farmers left in Florida in business.
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I appreciate your interest. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Mr. Wheeling.
STATEMENT OF CRAIG WHEELING, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, BROOKS TROPICALS, INC.
Mr. WHEELING. Yes, sir. My name is Craig Wheeling, I am CEO of Brooks Tropicals, we are a large domestic producer of tropical fruit, including limes and my family are also lime growers in a small way.
In summary, we are of course suffering from a rash of harmful pest infestations in Florida, the worse citrus canker is expected to cost over $200 million to eradicate. But that does not include all the costs of citrus canker. You have also got the cost of packing houses, lenders, farm employees, nurseries, grove owners. Furthermore, as reported in the January 16 Miami Herald, they estimated 1.8 million trees may have to be destroyed in south Florida to eradicate this thing. That would be an enormous loss to both the homeowners and to industry.
As a current update—and I am deviating a little bit from the written testimony because as we speak, things are changing in Dade County in terms of the lime industry. We are in our fifth year of a citrus quarantine in Dade County. Canker was first detected there in October of 1995 near Miami International Airport. The original 1995 quarantine area for Miami-Dade included 15 square miles with positive canker finds. Now that was back around October 1995. By October 1996, we had canker finds in 60 square miles. By November 1997, we had canker finds in 170 square miles. By February 1999, it had spread to 200 square miles in Dade County, and this does not include the spreads in the citrus industry outside of Dade County. By January of this year, almost 1,000 acres of lime groves had positive visual identifications for canker. So in 5 years as an industry we have seen nothing but growth in citrus canker in Dade County.
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The problems have gotten so bad that the competition from cheap imports combined with the cost of dealing with invasive pests—and I agree with Mr. Taylor, the costs are really there—are causing many south Dade farmers to rethink whether they even want to grow any food crops in Dade County right now, especially as close as you are to Miami International Airport and other ports.
Based on our firm's experiences with invasive pests, we have six broad recommendations.
We believe a $50 million, no-year, Federal contingency account for emergency invasive plant pest response activities should be established.
Right now, if you are a farmer, when an invasive pest like canker is found, we know of no quick assured source of funding to ensure eradication. We think of these bacteria, pests, whatever, as a lot like cancer in humans. It is beneficial to go in early and aggressively at the first sign of the disease. However, currently farmers can be faced with a situation where they do not know what to spray, they do not know how to deal with them and they have also got to go through their lobbying organizations to push for appropriations. All this takes time. And it ends up resulting in higher levels of damage to society and costly eradication efforts.
Also, we believe that spending from this contingency account must include public education programs so that homeowners and industry do not inadvertently spread diseases like canker. Now human movement of citrus plants and equipment, including things like clothing and gloves, is one of the two major vectors for the spread of canker. The other, as was mentioned earlier, the Gotwald studies—is storms, and we have a lot of those in Dade County. After 5 years, we still do not have a quarantine boundary sign program educating citizens where the quarantine starts and stops, even after Miami-Dade County Commission has requested we get one. I do not understand that, but you have really got to educate the public not to move this stuff, because it could be on a plane to California, it could be up here, it could be in Fort Pierce, it could be in LaBelle, it could be anywhere.
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The borders of the United States must be effectively protected. This goes without saying. As trade and tourism increases, we have got to effectively interdict invasive pests and this effort must be increased commensurately.
Federal tree insurance policies must be based on accurate estimates of the full cost of replacing the value of lost trees until they have grown to maturity.
Trade discussions must address the serious impact of invasive pests on border States like Florida and California.
Commercial growers who have been harmed during this canker outbreak should be reimbursed by the Federal Government for both tree and crop losses. The introduction and spread of the canker was not the growers' fault. It is an unfunded liability of increased trade and travel, and a lack and a failure of U.S. Government interdiction efforts.
The report that has been alluded to, ''Safeguarding American Plant Resources, A Stakeholder Review'' is an excellent report and recommendations in there should be carefully considered.
We believe also that there should be more effective inspections. The lime industry, the core area that was infected in about the geographic center of that, has a pummelo row. The pummelo row appears to me to be in a commercial citrus situation and I have been told by folks who are acquainted with the program, specifically, Dr. Rizve who is a plant pathologist with the eradication program, that that pummelo row has been infested for 1 to 3 years. Now of course, if you have a hurricane like Irene and spreads it around, you are going to have disastrous consequences and that is what we currently face down in Dade County right now.
It is hard to be optimistic in a month when a third of your industry is basically going to get destroyed. One point of optimism though is in this whole thing, I have worked with some awfully good, hard-working people at the State and Federal level in the trenches with the eradication program and with APHIS at the ports and I want to take this opportunity to thank all these people for their help. They really worked hard with not a huge amount of resources and I think with help and good work, we can solve these problems.
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Thanks again.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Wheeling appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. POMBO. Thank you.
Dr. Browning.
STATEMENT OF HAROLD W. BROWNING, CENTER DIRECTOR, CITRUS RESEARCH AND EDUCATION CENTER
Mr. BROWNING. Good morning. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and subcommittee members, my name is Harold Browning and I am with the University of Florida. Several of my colleagues are here today and available as we get into the question session, to answer specific questions. I would also like to refer you to exhibits that are placed at the back of this room and in the lobby to further illustrate. And we will have some slides on the screen here as we move along, to just show some of the impacts of invasive species in Florida.
The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences thanks you for the opportunity you have provided here at our facilities to discuss and present information on a topic that is affecting all of America, the increased incidence of invasion by non-native plants, animals and disease organisms. We also would like to acknowledge the efforts of you and your colleagues to commit additional Federal resources to address this nationwide issue, which is particularly critical in the State of Florida, as we have heard today here.
The current reality is, as has been restated several times, that we do have an increased number of new pests, invasive plants and diseases and I would like to address the impact of that on University of Florida programs.
Under the circumstances of these new invaders, we must limit the impact that these invaders have by minimizing risk, the spread of risk, reducing competitive ability of the new organisms as they spread in Florida and to develop and implement measures to reduce, weaken or remove populations of the invading species. And this is to follow efforts at eradication and detection that have already been covered.
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The University of Florida IFAS dedicates significant resources through its research, teaching and extension efforts to minimize the effects of exotic invaders on Florida agriculture and natural resources. The University of Florida conducts research and education programs across a broad arena which includes invasive species and animal health, pests and diseases of agricultural plants and wide-ranging impacts of exotic plants on agricultural, natural resources, public lands and the overall landscape of Florida and its citizens.
I would like to summarize some examples where the University of Florida is engaged in battling invasive species.
As you can see on the screen, exotic weed introductions, since there is a subtropical environment in Florida, seem endless. Their presence is felt across the State and into adjacent States.
Climbing fern has become a recognizable aspect of our landscape, while hydrilla chokes surface water bodies vital to the State's natural resources and tourism.
Melaleuca continues to defy previous expectations as it overtakes unique national park habitat.
These plants have been established for years, yet their effects continue to expand as the plants spread. Add to these a long list of additional species of invasive plants and it is easy to see why native flora is being replaced with aggressive, invasive species. And these seem to be beyond our scope of containment.
The University of Florida IFAS programs are aimed at mitigating the disruptive effects of expanding invasive plant populations and developing economical and practical solutions to these problems. Our Center for Aquatic Plants is focused specifically on invasive plant research and education.
Similarly, Florida has, in recent decades, been inundated with new pest and disease invaders. Citrus tristeza virus spread and injury has been exacerbated by the introduction of an effective vector, brown citrus aphid, and tree death from virus decline is accelerating as susceptible root stocks are infected.
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Programs aimed at countering this, the largest known plant virus, are being pursued cooperatively by the University of Florida, USDA and allied agencies and industry groups. Development of resistance to infection by CTV is being pursued as a long-term goal while short-term measures are being developed which rely on enhanced understanding of virus host plant biology and relationships.
Similarly, UF IFAS has stepped up cooperative research and education programs on citrus canker to assist citrus producers and Florida residents in responding to citrus canker outbreaks. While tree removal and burning continues to be the primary tool employed to combat canker, researchers are evaluating chemicals which hold promise in reducing the rate of spread from tree to tree. Genetics research coupled with plant improvement methodologies are being used to determine the possibilities of creating a citrus plant which is immune to canker and thus would not be a carrier of the canker bacterium. Some of this research is long-term and it focuses on permanent alternatives to fighting recurrent introductions of citrus canker from other citrus production areas.
Diaprepes weevil, an insect invader in Florida citrus, is also being addressed by an inter-disciplinary team of scientists belonging to the University of Florida, USDA and State Department of Agriculture. Evaluation of biological control organisms that can attack eggs and larval weevils in the soil are being blended with cultural operations such as irrigation and fertilization and the limited chemical pesticidal options to deliver a management program that is effective and affordable. Tree death due to diaprepes infestation is increasing, despite these efforts.
In another arena, a serious threat to American livestock production exists in the form of larger than life African ticks which are hitch-hiking into Florida on imports of reptiles and other animals in the pet trade. Ticks routinely are intercepted on lizards, snakes and turtles shipped into Florida and associated organisms known to cause heartwater disease in cattle have also been detected.
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I would also like to state at this point that we have added some updated testimony to our written documents that are available and you will have copies of those.
Not only are Florida's livestock at risk, but native wildlife species are susceptible to attack as the tick and its disease agent are discovered in the State. Extensive efforts at University of Florida are underway to provide improved detection and diagnosis as well as educational efforts to reduce accidental introduction of this devastating disease into the United States. Efforts also are directed at managing the injury caused by exotic livestock pests such as the African ticks.
Mr. Chairman, aggressive research and education programs are vital to combatting invasive species and the University of Florida IFAS pledges, with your help, to continue applying our collective resources and expertise to these problems. It will take tremendous additional discovery, technology development and educational efforts to reverse the current trend towards increasing invasive species problems. This will not be possible without substantial comm