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14 SEEDWORLD.COM SEPTEMBER 2015 Another issue is that government inspections at ports of entry tend to be visual. The problem is you cant visually detect pathogens that occur inside the seed Dunkle says. Instead of going down that road APHIS called together a conference of seed companies regulatory entities and ASTA to look for alternatives. The result is the National Seed Health Accreditation Pilot Program. APHIS sent out this olive branch to companies when they said we would like to work with industry to address the issue associated with seed imports without imposing more regulations on the industry Dunkle says. We said lets look at accrediting companies and look at what things need to be in their systems for Cucumber Green Mottle Mosaic Virus. Checks and Balances To begin APHIS will accredit as many as 20 seed companies who will work together to examine each others qual- ity assurance practices and develop a standard for excluding CGMMV from U.S. soil. APHIS will perform laboratory testing on seed imports as a check on the system. APHIS will hopefully be able to rate the effectiveness of the program through these baseline checks Dunkle says. Most of these practices are already in place for phytosanitary protection. Companies are already doing field inspections and other tests for internal company purposes. Seed samples will be tested at Iowa State University and compared to results from accredited companies. If successful the testing done at Iowa State University wont find CGMMV in seed deemed clean by industry partners. Instead of having the material stopped at the port of entry a sample taken and slowing everything down were using existing mechanisms to manage this Perry says. Its very low- impact as far as running the program. The accreditation program appeals to industry for a number of reasons. First participants in the program will be test- ing seed to ensure it is free from disease and pests. Doing those tests in-house makes the process fairly streamlined. As Perry says mandatory testing through APHIS could slow down import and distribution processes for companies some of which are running on schedules where a few days can be significant. For us this is something we already do says Samantha Thomas global stewardship and industry affairs lead at Monsanto based in Woodland Calif. Our turnaround time is seven days. If this goes to an external lab that timeline is not fixed. A couple of days could matter for a growing season. Second one of the groups with the most to lose should CGMMV take hold in the United States is the seed companies themselves. Even if a particular company is not responsible for importing tainted seeds it is just as likely to suffer the consequences of an invasive pathogen in production fields. None of us works in a silo Thomas says. Its in our industrys best interest to share this information. Seed health is not a new concept for the vegetable seed industry. Many of the larger companies have a robust system in place. We have good management practices Thomas says noting there is quite a bit of knowledge within the industry. Tom Moore HM.CLAUSE manager of seed production based in Davis Calif. echoes that sentiment and says that industry has a responsibility to not only itself but also to consumers to keep contaminated seeds out of the market. When youre talking about diseases they dont attack just one company Moore says. We want to be sure that the seed we bring in is as clean as possible. Its putting more of the onus on the com- pany our industry than on APHIS. Perry says its clear that seed compa- nies have an interest in keeping their own seed as clean as possible. If there was a positive finding the industry does not want that seed Perry APHIS sent out this olive branch to companies when they said we would like to work with industry to address the issue associated with seed imports without imposing more regulations on the industry. Ric Dunkle