There is a $75 million grant program at APHIS called the “Plant Pest and Disease Management and Disaster Prevention” that has not been well utilized by our members. The program is also referred to as the Farm Bill Section 10007 program, which provides funding to strengthen the nation’s infrastructure for pest detection and surveillance, identification, and threat mitigation.
In FY 2017 there was $62.5 million available with about $5 million of that going to the National Clean Plant Network. APHIS received 720 proposals and funded 480 of them, a 66% success rate. For a list of funded projects in FY 2017, go to: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/farmbill-section10007/fy17/FY2017-PPDMDPP-Spending-Plan.pdf
As you can see from last year’s funded projects, there are very few related to weeds, but only because there were very few applications (i.e. “suggestions”) from weed scientists.
A good place to start to get more information about the program is the FY2017 Frequently Asked Questions document at: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/farmbill-section10007/fy17/FY17-Farmbill-FAQs.pdf
The main web page for the program with additional documents and details is: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/ppq-farm-bill/farmbill-activities-17
TIMELINE:
The FY 2018 open period will last six weeks from July 10, 2017 through August 18, 2017. Awards are expected to be made in December 2017.
QUESTIONS? Please contact:
Michael Tadle
National Policy Manager
Farm Bill Section 10007, Pest Detection and Emergency Programs
USDA APHIS Plant Protection & Quarantine
[email protected]
Ph: 301-851-2215
Cell: 240-215-5112
Finally, I’d like to thank Susan Koehler at APHIS for bringing this to our attention. She spoke with Mike Tadle, the National Policy Manager for this program, and he indicated that the time is ripe to reach out to new stakeholders and types of projects and was supportive for entertaining suggestions for uses of this funding source for weed related issues as long as they are not Federal noxious weeds. (FYI- The list of the 112 Federal noxious weeds is at: https://www.aphis.usda.gov/plant_health/plant_pest_info/weeds/downloads/weedlist.pdf)
Some ideas for projects to consider:
- Risk assessment and pathways for herbicide-resistant (HR) weeds, risk based models and decision support tools.
- Weed surveillance- If a state is concerned about a particular injurious invasive weed and it impacts their production or exports.
- Targeting domestic weed and weed seed inspection activities at vulnerable points of entry into states and the country.
- Preventing the introduction of HR weeds from foreign countries.
- Creating new identification and testing methods to detect weed seed in various seed or commodities (i.e. pollinator seed mixes).
- Outreach and Education for managing invasive and HR weeds.
This report was prepared by:
Lee Van Wychen, Ph.D.
Science Policy Director
National and Regional Weed Science Societies
5720 Glenmullen Pl, Alexandria, VA 22303
[email protected]
Phone: 202-746-4686