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What is APHIS? APHIS stands for the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, an arm of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Their role in safeguarding American agriculture has expanded over the years to include wildlife damage management, the welfare of animals, human health and safety, and ecosystems vulnerable to invasive pests and pathogens. |
Who should be interested and concerned about these proposals?
All of us who care about horticulture in any form should be both interested and concerned. If you enjoy planting something new in your garden; if you ever order seeds, bulbs or plants from another country or from a small nursery in this country who originally imported their stock from another country; if you support the small local and mailorder nurseries and growers in your area and throughout the country - YOU need to be concerned.
All those who belong to plant or garden related societies should be interested and concerned about the proposed changes to existing import regulations. If you belong to a society or garden club, please contact your president or board of directors and make them aware of this issue so that they can inform the other members via your newsletter or other publications.
Anyone who operates a small or mid-size nursery should be vitally interested - the regulations they ultimately pass could mean your livelihood.
If you know any nursery folk who are not online, please let them know about this issue; help them add their comments. There is no big list of nurseries; no way to contact all of them, so if you can help in this regard, please do it..
So, What Are These Proposed Changes?
The proposed regulation changes have been posted on the Federal Register web site as Docket # 03-069-1 - APHIS-2004-0024 - Nursery Stock Regulations.
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Where to go to find the docket: Unfortunately, you cannot create a direct link to the document. Go to the main docket list page. The first item on the page, listing Nursery Stock Regulations, is the notice of the extension of the comment period.
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