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New Agriculture Partnership Established to Improve Information Sharing

(02/05/2008)A new alliance of federal and state agencies responsible for agricultural inspection held its inaugural meeting recently, seeking to improve communication and innovation between its operations.

The Agricultural Quarantine Inspection Partnership Council met January 23 to map out improvement plans on a number of fronts. Initial efforts will seek to establish better lines of communication between the agencies and stakeholders and established 10 action plans for the group to tackle.

"The idea behind the partnership was to bring us together to compare notes on how we can continue to best protect America’s agriculture," said Kevin Harriger, Deputy Executive Director, Agriculture Operational Oversight. "The meeting was very informative and productive. The level of agreement and the spirit of cooperation were very motivating."

The group approved its charter, which calls for:

• Improved two-way communication between stakeholders
• A forum for innovation, process and policy improvements
• A robust council to monitor and support progress on 10 action plans of the Joint Agency Task Force. ( Summary of the Report of the APHIS-CBP Joint Task Force on Improved Agricultural Inspection (doc - 234 KB.) )

The meeting included an extensive briefing and discussion of the elements of the action plan, and resulted in several key commitments from the partnership members, including the following:

• Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will continue to work with Florida to address plant- and pest-related issues
• APHIS and CBP will collaborate on creating a method to consistently provide plant pest information to the states
• Other government agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will be included in future outreach and communication initiatives
• CBP’s assistant commissioner for field operations will participate with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture in monthly conference calls
• CBP will enhance its participation on the Invasive Species Council.

These commitments were designed to help accomplish the partnership’s goals of strengthening communication and information-sharing between federal agencies and the states.

"I think we all thought that this meeting was a great success, well worth the effort," said Vernon Foret, Acting Executive Director, Agriculture Programs & Trade Liaison.

The next meeting is scheduled for the week of April 28, 2008.