While automatic federal spending cuts caused by budget sequestration are expected to affect the U.S. Department of Agriculture—with the most dramatic impact on meat inspections—the acting administrator of the department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service said his agency will not be furloughing any employees because it has taken cuts in other parts of the agency.
Kevin Shea spoke about the service’s role in combating plant and animal pests and diseases affecting agriculture last week as part of the California Farm Bureau Federation 2013 Leaders Conference.
APHIS will lose 5 percent of its appropriations as a result of the sequester, Shea said. That’s on top of the 10 percent cuts already made in the last two years, bringing current APHIS appropriations to $776 million.
But these cuts will not lead to furloughs at APHIS, he said, in part because only about 53 percent of current APHIS appropriations go toward salaries and benefits.
Recognizing where the federal budget was heading, Shea said the department took steps to reduce some 500 APHIS employees in the last two years, including implementing hiring freezes and offering early-out incentives for retirement. He said about the only hiring he has approved for APHIS involves positions conducting on-the-ground work such as dealing with disease and pest outbreaks or detection.
Despite tight budget times, Shea said APHIS recognizes that "California is always going to be at a unique risk" of incurring new pests and diseases, not only because of the state’s southern border with Mexico but because of the huge amount of imports from Asia.
"We know that a whole bunch of pests and diseases that entered this country over the last 12 to 20 years probably came from trade with Asia," he said. "California is at the frontline of that. We recognize that’s a fact, and USDA will stand by you and stand with you as we deal with these emerging problems."
He noted in the last 12 years, APHIS has spent $1.8 billion in emergency programs on new pests and diseases, with $556 million of that spent in California. The 2008 Farm Bill also provided the state with another $49 million in the last three years to fight plant pests and diseases.
Shea praised the state’s response to its detection of bovine spongiform encephalopathy last year, saying the case was handled with such professionalism and discretion that it didn’t turn into a "media circus," nor was there much negative impact on export markets and future markets.
He said efforts to detect and control the European grapevine moth have also been "a huge success" because of the partnership among APHIS, the state, counties and farmers. He emphasized that while APHIS provided funding, it was the state and counties that did much of the trapping and surveillance, and it was farmers who applied the treatments on their land rather than the government.
"The industry itself really stepped up," he said. "I think this program in many respects is the wave of the future because of the roles that each partner has filled."
Shea said APHIS will continue to support other ongoing programs to fight plant pests such as the Asian citrus psyllid and glassy-winged sharpshooter. The USDA animal disease traceability rule, which became effective last week, also will now help the department do a more effective job tracing back animal diseases when they are detected, he said.
He also addressed longstanding concerns that farmers and ranchers have had about the job the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency is doing to protect American agricultural and economic interests from harmful pests and diseases. That responsibility used to fall on USDA until 10 years ago, when the APHIS Agricultural Quarantine and Inspection force became part of the Department of Homeland Security, whose focus, many feared, was more on "thugs and drugs as opposed to bugs," Shea said.
"Things have dramatically improved over the last five years, and I think they’re going a good job," he said. "Are they doing a perfect job? No. But we weren’t either. There were pests and diseases getting into the country when APHIS ran that program too."
He encouraged farmers to participate in an upcoming webinar on April 11 in which APHIS will meet with stakeholders to talk about strategic planning for the future.
"We know we can’t operate like we have in the past," he said, noting that APHIS has sometimes resorted to regulatory decisions as a first option in dealing with pests and diseases but that hard budget times have made it necessary "to find other ways of dealing with those problems."
(Ching Lee is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at clee@cfbf.com.)