Current agriculture inspectors were reassigned out of the GS-436 series to the new GS-401 positions on March 7, 2004. Provided they met eligibility requirements, CBP agriculture specialists were promoted to the GS-11 level effective March 21.

An agriculture specialist must be "an expert and technical consultant in the areas of inspection, intelligence, analysis, examination, and law enforcement activities related to the importation of agricultural/commercial commodities and conveyances at the various ports of entry." What this really means is that they determine the admissibility of agriculture commodities while preventing the introduction of harmful pests, diseases, and potential agro/bio-terrorism into the United States.

New CBP agriculture specialists
Entry level agriculture specialists must have earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences, agriculture, natural resource management, chemistry or a closely related field such as botany or entomology. They can also have a combination of experience and education that includes twenty-four semester hours of study in the above courses and job experience in areas such as pest control, pesticide application, inspecting aircraft or passengers, x-ray or environmental monitoring, or farm management related to disease control, insect detection/eradication or pest control.

New hires spend the first 20 days after being hired going through pre-academy training at the port where they will be working at after graduation. They are given overviews of the Department of Homeland Security and a few of its components: U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They will receive training in defensive driving, stress and lifestyle management, and pesticide certification.

The first new CBP agriculture specialist class is scheduled to start in early May 2004 at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Professional Development Center in Frederick, Md. The training is scheduled to be approximately 40 training days.

After graduation in July 2004, the new agriculture specialists will receive additional in-port training. They will get shadow assignments to become further familiarized with their new duties and the immigration and customs functions at their port of entry.

Field training
Current agriculture specialists will receive training in nine important areas:

• Anti-terrorism and passenger processing,
• Document analysis and traveler interviews - how to recognize fraudulent documents and CBP declarations,
• Detection of personal and luggage concealment - methods that passengers use to conceal contraband,
• Trade processing overview - a look at entries, fees, the Harmonized Tariff Schedule,etc.,
• Anti-terrorism and trade - how to identify shipments that could pose a risk,
• Detecting merchandise concealment - methods of concealing contraband in commercial merchandise shipments,
• Detecting conveyance concealment - methods of concealing contraband in cars, trains, airplanes, ships, etc.,
• Report writing - how to properly write a report that can be entered into the computer system. and
• Officer Safety - situational awareness, inspector safety, hazardous materials, and response procedures.

There will also be an assortment of checklist-driven modules that are conducted as shadow assignments. Agriculture specialists will shadow CBP officers working passenger primary and examination, US-VISIT, and biometrics. They will also observe the workings of land border port of entry primary and cargo facilities where they will receive some instruction in manifest review. There will be classroom instruction, where they will receive access to, and demonstrations of, automated systems such as the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS) and the Automated Commercial System (ACS). Additional training will be computer-based with modules on search authority, weapons, and blood borne pathogens.

All this training will allow the agriculture specialists to process paperwork on a shipment of strawberries, for example, and they will know to look for irregularities in the paperwork. They will also be able to completely enter that shipment of strawberries and release it, not from just the agriculture function, but from the customs function as well.

On the other hand, current CBP officers will receive agriculture fundamentals training that will allow them to recognize the signs of possible agricultural anomalies. They will receive a CD-ROM with six modules designed to raise their level of agricultural awareness to that of the new CBP officer academy graduates. Current CBP officers will also receive classroom training on pests, animal diseases, agro/bio-terrorism, the role of the agriculture specialist, and the statutory authority they work under.

CBP officers will be given training in the importation of animals, permits, and regulatory decision making. They will learn how far they can go in processing an agricultural shipment before they have to turn it over to an agriculture specialist. The ability to recognize the signs and symptoms of plant pests and diseases would allow a CBP officer entering a load of lettuce to recognize a possible problem that he may not have recognized before, and to know that an agriculture specialist should inspect the shipment. Without this training the officer may have looked at the lettuce, completed the paperwork, released the shipment of lettuce, and accidentally allowed a devastating disease into the country.

While CBP officers and agriculture specialists will continue to perform very different duties, they will, after this training, be coming ever closer to the ultimate goal of "One Face at the Border."