USDA Targets Invasive Pests

USDA Secretary Mike Johanns Oct. 12 announced that universities in seven states will receive $1.1 million in cooperative agreements for research on measures to combat harmful pests and diseases.  The research also will determine the economic implications of preventing, controlling or eradicating invasive pests.

The agreements will provide funding to research institutions in Arizona, California, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, New Mexico and Wyoming. The issues these projects will examine are:

•     ranchers’ incentives to prevent and manage invasive weeds under different economic conditions, and the potential effect of public programs;

•     the benefits, costs and market impacts of animal identification and traceability programs that can help USDA respond to animal disease outbreaks;

•     the benefits and costs of policy options to manage potential risks associated with commercial imports of non-native nursery stock;

•     the economic effects of different inspection regimes for imported products to improve the design of prevention and enforcement tools;

•     the economic effects of phytosanitary barriers to U.S. seed exports;

•     the use of financial instruments known as insect derivatives as a market-based approach for farmers to mitigate the economic risk of invasive species damage; and

•     the potential for some rules and policies to encourage foreign producers of exports to voluntarily comply with U.S. import standards for invasive species.