USDA Provides more than $180 Thousand to Projects that Protect Iowa Agriculture and Natural Resources

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is allocating more than $180 thousand to Iowa as part of a nationwide effort to strengthen the country’s infrastructure for pest detection, surveillance, and mitigation, as well as protect the U.S. nursery system. USDA is providing more than $70 million in funding this year to support 350 projects in 48 states, Guam, and Puerto Rico. The Plant Protection Act Section 7721 gives USDA the authority to provide this funding.“Iowa’s 84,900 farms and ranches span 30.5 million acres. The state is a major producer of corn, soybeans, and hay,” said USDA Under Secretary Jenny Moffitt. “These projects will help protect Iowa’s agricultural industry and its contributions to our national agricultural economy.”

These funds will support projects covering a range of plant health protection activities including:

• $162,386 to develop a seed health dashboard, which will monitor seed imports for damaging invasive pests; and
• $20,000 to survey for the walnut twig beetle and thousand cankers disease in the state.

Since 2009, USDA has supported more than 5,170 projects and provided nearly $809 million in PPA 7721 funding. Collectively, these projects allow USDA and its partners to quickly detect and rapidly respond to invasive plant pests and diseases. These projects also enable our country to maintain the infrastructure necessary to ensure disease-free, certified plants are available to U.S. specialty crop producers.

View the fiscal year 2023 Plant Protection Act’s Section 7721 spending plans on the USDA, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service website: www.aphis.usda.gov/ppa-projects.

Original source can be found here.