ABSTRACT
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) was established in 1972. APHIS regulations are implemented through a system of risk analysis and permits. The burden of identifying risks and level of mitigation required and supplying the means to ensure sufficient mitigation to the exporting country lies with the importing country. The changing nature of phytosanitary certification problems is requiring that solutions move away from adapting existing chemical/physical treatments and toward new treatment technologies such as irradiation and case-by-case system approaches. The political nature of many of these situations and the increasing influence of special interests on APHIS and Agricultural Research Service (ARS) priorities have made their management extremely problematic. Assessing and managing phytosanitary hazards is an increasingly visible APHIS and ARS collaborative effort that creatively applies science to produce outcomes meeting the needs of clients of the United States Department of Agriculture.
