Bugs and thugs

Jeff Grode, executive director of agriculture programs and liaison office for Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security, gave a presentation to the advisory committee on how the Department of Homeland Security is doing with agricultural inspections. He explained some of the agency's efforts to find appropriate staffing levels and explained the CBP's approach to dealing with risk of invasive pests. High volume low risk commodities are now inspected on the order of one in 20 or one in 25, while other higher risk commodities are inspected with every shipment.

He acknowledged legislation in Congress that seeks to return inspectors to the authority of the USDA, but he flipped the argument. If inspectors are switched back to the USDA, he said it may be likely that those inspectors could go through several years of transition again.

While it now may be a consensus industry view that ag inspectors should be moved back to the USDA, committee members saw no need to pound home that point with Grode.