On Feb 23, 2013, at 6:49 AM, William Aley wrote: > Feel free to drop me a line and chat directly with me if you'd like. It is always interesting hearing how we are perceived and most of us are pretty approachable about trying to fix the system when it's not working. > William Aley > Sr. Regulatory Specialist > Plants for Planting > PPQ,APHIS Hi William, I for one appreciate that you listen in on these conversations and comment, even if sometimes some of the comments are hurtful. I understand, and I think most everyone else here does as well, the necessity for some kind of regulations and restrictions. I keep wondering if eventually orange juice will become a very expensive specialty drink that only the very wealthy will be able to afford. On the other hand, it seems some USDA regulations and some international treaty provisions are so poorly written or not well thought out that they almost ask to be ignored or sidestepped. Other times the unintentional but effective result is that a severe restriction is the result. It sounds like this CBD is one of the former. Requiring a phytosanitary inspection and certificate to be made at the country of shipping origin for all plant and bulb material other than seeds is an example of the latter. So I'll reiterate my wish that I expressed in my previous email: I would be willing to pay USDA/APHIS agents here in the USA to do a phytosanitary inspection immediately upon arrival of plants or bulbs that are sent from those countries where it is very difficult to almost impossible to get it done in that country prior to shipment. For example, I've been told that Brazilian authorities will only provide phytosanitary inspections to large companies with some kind of special, expensive license to export plants. Private individuals and small businesses are disallowed. This effectively makes it impossible to import plants or bulbs from Brazil for someone like me. In other countries, there may only be one inspection facility in the entire country at some location that the average person or small nursery cannot get to or is too expensive to travel there. I was noticing that a few of my older bulbs came to me from a number of different countries before the requirement for imported bulbs to have a phyto was made mandatory. It made me wonder how many cases of disease or pest introduction on dormant bulbs imported by private individuals were documented prior to that time? --Lee Poulsen Pasadena, California, USA - USDA Zone 10a Latitude 34°N, Altitude 1150 ft/350 m