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Source: USDA, 1/5/21
The U.S.
Department of Agriculture (USDA) is allocating $2.4 million to North Carolina
as part of its effort to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure for pest
detection and surveillance, identification, and threat mitigation, and to
safeguard the U.S. nursery production system. Overall, USDA is providing more
than $70 million in funding this year to support 383 projects in 49 states, the
District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico. USDA provides this funding under
the authority of the Plant Protection Act Section 7721.“North Carolina agriculture and related economic activity contributes more than $92 billion to the State's economy. Protecting North Carolina’s agricultural industry is critical,” said USDA Under Secretary Greg Ibach. “These projects, will help North Carolina protect its resources and contribute to USDA’s mission of keeping our nation’s agriculture economy strong.” These funds will support projects covering a range of plant
health and pest mitigation activities, including:
- $437,760
to support the National Clean Plant Network foundation plant stocks for
multiple crops;
- $364,370
to enhance exotic plant pest mitigation and response by developing new
pest response guidelines;
- $301,048
to develop a data-driven and sensor integrated platform for monitoring
emerging Phytophthora diseases;
- $184,929
to support trade route analytic computing and evaluation;
- $131,989
to manage emerging plant pest and pathogen threats using tangible
landscape technology;
- $131,529
to develop a delimitation survey tool for new pest response teams;
- $129,290
to develop new predictive modeling approaches to estimate plant pest
suitability; and
- $123,791
to field test a delimiting survey design for mobile insects.
Since 2009, USDA has supported nearly 4,400 projects and
provided more than $670 million in funding. Collectively, these projects allow
USDA and its partners to quickly detect and rapidly respond to invasive plant
pests and diseases. They also help our country maintain the infrastructure
necessary to ensure disease-free, certified planting materials are available to
U.S. specialty crop producers. As the United States and the world recognize the International Year of Plant Health through June 2021, this funding highlights USDA’s continued commitment to safeguarding our agricultural resources for current and future generations. View the fiscal year 2021 Plant Protection Act Section 7721
spending plans on the USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service website: www.aphis.usda.gov/ppa-projects.
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