Nursery compliance funding

In early June a delegation went to Washington for the purpose of generating support for the funding request of $5million to defray the costs that nurseries are incurring to comply with shipping regulations. Labor and chemicals amount to an estimated $8 to 10 million annually.

17 meetings were held with House and Senate members who have districts with impacted nurseries. Noted meetings were with Senators Boxer and Feinstein's office, USDA Under Secretary Bill Hawks, Representatives, Pombo, Gallegly, Issa, and Farr among others.

Very positive discussions were held with a generally supportive position on their part. Immediately after the meetings, 26 members of California's congressional delegation signed onto a letter that detailed the costs to nursery growers and noted that these actions protect all of agriculture. The letter requested an appropriation of $5 million.

The House version of the agriculture spending bill dramatically increased USDA funding for the control effort and encouraged USDA to work with nursery growers for actions taken that help protect agricultural production. It did not attach a specific dollar figure to this vague directive. In contrast, the Senate bill provides far less funding for the control effort and does not include any language regarding nursery funding. Elsewhere, the Senate bill does note that nursery growers face "costly shipping requirements" stemming from GWSS. To get any relief this year, additional lobbying effort is needed when the House and Senate confer later this year and arrive at a final spending bill. Meanwhile, nurseries continue to carry a heavy financial burden and need help.

Barrier project

The last of the paperwork issues (insurance and contracts language) are being finalized and we should see actual installation of the barrier screens in the next 90 days. A supplier of these barriers will do the installation. Dr. Blua is heading up the research team with CDFA staff doing data collection in the field.

Approved Treatment

Field trials have not been started due to a lack of response on the issue of what the trials need to look like to meet the goals of the program and be acceptable to CDFA. Nurseries are re-submitting a list of products that would be usable for them as treatments.

We continue to encourage progress on this important directive of the Task Force.

Shipping and Inspections

Nurseries continue to report generally satisfactory results with both origin and destination county inspections. Minimal rejections have occurred and the success rate is above 99%. There has been some concern raised about variances between destination counties. Issues that arise have been handled by CDFA. Ventura County has hired and trained its own inspection teams that have replaced the CCC crews in an effort to improve the process. Greg Morris reported that 24 training programs were conducted for inspectors around the state.