Posted on 02/17/2007 5:57:31 AM PST by radar101
SAN DIEGO COUNTY ---- State inspectors have intercepted nearly a dozen shipments of Mexican avocados carrying a pest never seen before in California and have petitioned the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help plug a border "leak" that could be letting the invader into San Diego County.
Officials from the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Avocado Commission said Friday that they were "concerned" about the discovery of a species of "armored scale" ---- a flat, platelike-looking insect that feeds by sucking the juices out of virtually all types of woody plants and shrubs ---- in shipments of Mexican avocados.
Since Feb. 1, state inspectors have rejected 11 of 44 shipments of Mexican Haas avocados at state inspection sites, Food and Agriculture spokesman Steve Lyle said.
Lyle said the shipments were found carrying live species of a scale found in Mexico and the East Coast of the United States ---- one that is not present in California, the leading producer of avocados in the nation.
"They're not known to occur in California and are regarded as an invasive species," he said. "It's a pest we're concerned about."
California pest-control inspectors consider scale a potentially dangerous agricultural pest and, Lyle said, would naturally reject any shipment found with the insect.
State officials inspect about 80 percent of the commercial products entering California, representatives from the California Avocado Commission said.
But the federal government does not consider scale dangerous ---- which could mean that the invasive pest is already entering California. U.S. Agriculture Department inspectors currently inspect all shipments coming into the United States from Mexico through Otay Mesa, the only area inspection point still run by the federal agency.
Steve Bellamore of the avocado commission said state officials petitioned the federal Department of Agriculture for help Friday.
Helene Wright, the federal agency's plant health director for California, said Friday afternoon that a proposal to have federal inspectors at Otay adopt California's position to reject shipments with the bug was sent to the agency's top lawyers.
Wright said the agency intended to act quickly on the request, but could not specify how long a decision might take.
While saying publicly Friday that the commission would let federal and state officials address the problem, avocado commission spokesman Bellamore issued a more aggressively-worded avocado commissionbulletin to growers the same day.
The bulletin noted "mounting negative chatter" in the avocado industry, that is, concern that the commission was not taking action. In fact, the bulletin said, commission members had pressured state and federal agencies to agree to have federal inspectors reject shipments if they found scale infestations at the Otay Mesa checkpoint.
The bulletin also said that federal agriculture officials had arranged an "emergency" review, to be conducted next week, of the avocado import program in Mexico itself. That review could investigate whether more could be done at packing houses in Mexico to ensure pest-free avocado shipments to this country.
Meanwhile, Scott McIntyre, chairman of the avocado commission, and an avocado grower himself, said local growers were worried. Asked if the discovery could reignite dormant demands by California avocado growers to ban imports of foreign avocados, McIntyre responded, "It already has."
San Diego County produces 60 percent of all of the state's avocados, according to the avocado commission.That amounted to more than $251 million worth of fruit in 2005, according to the county of San Diego's Department of Agriculture, Weights and Measures.
Joe Morse, a UC Riverside entomologist who receives funding from the avocado commission ---- an Irvine-based body that is the research and marketing arm for avocados ---- says growers are afraid the scale pest could be getting into San Diego County despite the rejections of the infested shipments found by state inspectors.
Morse said local growers are afraid that scale could become a new, costly pest to the avocado industry. Because the new pest was found in large quantities of the rejected shipments, there are fears it may have developed a resistance to commonly used pesticides, he said.
"A lot of growers are very upset," McIntryre said. "It's not just a random occurrence. It's not just one load. We think it's 25 percent of all the fruit coming into California. Any new pest that comes in ---- it's alive ---- on fruit, we're super concerned."
Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.
How did Al Gore get on an avocado?
Just doing the jobs American pests refuse to do. They have families to support as well. Cut them some slack. /sarc
Can't CA set up their own inspection station about 100 yards down the road from the US "inspection" station? The trucks could just make a U-turn back into Mexico with the infected fruit. Why does the federal government over-rule state government on every issue? We need a totally new Congress made up of members who subscribe to the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Ya know, maybe we'd be better off letting the Agriculture Dept. patrol the border.
HOLY GUACOMOLE!!!
There was one--It was eliminated due to "Budget cuts"
These are DoJ protected parasites. Leave them alone.
Just another aspect of the "open borders" we're all just one big happy family crowd. Viva Mehico, viva Mehican avocado pest !!!
Not to worry.
South of the border they will give them a good spraying of chlordane!
They too will be given a credit card.
So what happened to this shipment of tainted avacados? Did they just let 'em take it back to Mexico?
to help plug a border "leak" that could be letting the invader into San Diego County.
That cracked me up, they coulda been talking about illegal aliens. But no, they will go full out war to stop scale but not illegals. rofl
If we had a border they could talk of plugging a leak. I wonder if anyone in California has ever given any thought to controlling the border against anything other than insects.
....so what. Bring 'em in... they can do the jobs that American pests won't do.
At least California understands the problems caused by agricultural pests.
Pity they don't understand the 2 legged pests and what they cause in the Sacramento legislature....
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