Country: United States

Title:

APHIS Expands the Citrus Greening (Huanglongbing) Quarantine Area in Louisiana

Contact:
Shailaja Rabindran, Director of Specialty Crops and Cotton Pests, (301) 851 2167, Shailaja.Rabindran@usda.gov and Daniel Murphy, Assistant National Policy Manager, (775) 221-9237, Daniel.m.murphy@usda.gov

Report:

Effective immediately, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), in cooperation with the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry (LDAF), is establishing a Federal quarantine area for Huanglongbing (HLB; citrus greening), caused by Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus, in all of Saint Charles Parish in Louisiana. APHIS is taking this action because of HLB detections in plant tissue samples collected in multiple locations during routine surveys in Louisiana. This update expands the Federal quarantine areas in Louisiana; it does not affect the State-level quarantine areas or the regulatory requirements for any stakeholders in Louisiana. LDAF established the intrastate quarantine on April 20, 2022. The Federal and State HLB quarantine areas in Louisiana are now parallel.

APHIS is applying safeguarding measures on the interstate movement of regulated articles from the quarantined areas in Saint Charles Parish, Louisiana. These measures parallel the intrastate quarantine that LDAF established. This action is necessary to prevent the spread of HLB to non-infested areas of the United States.

The establishment of this quarantine area is reflected on the APHIS Citrus Greening webpage, which also contains descriptions of all the current Federal HLB quarantine areas. APHIS will publish a notice in the Federal Register. 

Under IPPC Standards, 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' the agent that causes citrus greening is a pest that is present: not widely distributed and under official control  in the United States.

Posted Date: Jan. 2, 2024, 4:35 p.m.