USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service reveals new information on mystery seed shipments form China.
USDA is working with Chinese officials to find out who is sending the shipments, and more importantly to stop further shipments. Osama El-Lissy is the APHIS Deputy Administrator for Plant Protection and Quarantine.
“We don’t know the background information about these companies,” he said. “That’s why we’re working with our counterparts in China to follow up on some of these senders.”
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is also working with the U.S. Postal Service, Customs and Border Protection, and other online retailers to intercept packages.
“We’ve been working with primary e-commerce companies to use their own systems in stopping future shipments to the United States,” El-Lissy said.
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In the meantime, people are heeding requests to report the unsolicited packages.
“We have received more than 9,000 emails from private citizens across the country who report receiving unsolicited seeds, and we have collected 925 seed packages so far.”
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Those contents have been analyzed.
“We found one seed that’s considered to be noxious weed... that’s called dodder... and another seed, again, is considered to be noxious, is water spinach. That’s the extent of our findings so far. We found one larva in one seed. It’s a leaf beetle,” El-Lissy said. “They’re common. Most species are common in the United States, but other than that we have not found anything alarming.”
U.S. residents are encouraged to continue reporting seed packets. and they are not the only recipients, Canadians also have received these mysterious seeds.
You can report mysterious seeds by click HERE.