Experts Take First Step toward Fighting 'Citrus Greening'

WASHINGTON — About 65 federal and state agriculture regulators and experts from industry met for a two-day closed-door "summit" this week to discuss growing concerns over the plant disease known as citrus greening.

"It was about gathering and sharing information," said David Kaplan, assistant deputy administrator for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's plant protection and quarantine program and director of its emergency and domestic programs.

No decisions were made and no "action plan" was proposed to deal with the disease — also known as huanglongbing — which does not pose a health threat to humans, but which discolors fruit, causes a bitter taste and can cause tree death, he said.

The next step will be to compile the information shared at the summit, distribute it at the local level and develop what Kaplan called an "integration plan" for addressing the problem.

"What can industry do; what can the states do; what can USDA do to kind of move forward?" he said. "We recognize that addressing this disease in an effective manner is not going to be accomplished strictly through a regulatory strategy."

Since the disease's discovery in Florida in 2005, the federal government has placed a quarantine restricting the movement of host plants and plant parts. Three weeks ago that quarantine was expanded from 28 counties to the entire state. Quarantines are also in place for Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and 32 counties in Texas.

The Asian citrus psyllid, an insect that carries the disease, has been found in those locations, but Florida is the only area where both the disease and the insect have been found, Kaplan said.

Representatives from all of the affected regions participated in the summit.

"I'm very encouraged," said Mike Sparks, executive vice president and CEO of Florida Citrus Mutual, who attended the meeting and called it a "first step" in addressing the problem nationally.

Noting that the psyllid is found in Mexico, Sparks said other citrus-producing states including California also are worried about a greening outbreak.

"This very clearly could become a national issue and a national priority," he said. "Everybody in that room was in full agreement that this has to be a high priority."

Kaplan said one outcome of the meeting will be to improve coordination among the greening research being conducted at universities in each of the affected states and territories.

Ultimately, Kaplan said, regulators and the industry hope to determine "how can we improve the preparedness of states that don't have this problem; how can we prevent it from spreading further where it occurs, ... how can we respond effectively, and how can we recover and keep the industry viable and going?"

As part of the summit, leaders were given a scientific overview of the greening problem by Timothy Gottwald, research leader and plant pathologist at the USDA's Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Fla. Gottwald could not be reached for comment.

The summit also heard from representatives of U.S. Sugar about their experiences in combating the disease. The representatives could not be reached for comment.