The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued emails May 10, 2012 announcing changes to some Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service revised export requirements and plant lists for the following countries for the week of May 4 through May 10, 2012:
The Food Safety and Inspection Service said the Committee on Import and Export Certification and Inspection Systems (CCFICS) established a Codex electronic working group (eWG), chaired by the U.S., to develop a questionnaire on how countries currently assess and manage the performance of their national food control systems and to give examples of indicators used. This questionnaire will be circulated by the Codex Secretariat, and, based on the replies, the U.S. will prepare a more detailed discussion paper and project document for the next session of CCFICS. FSIS said Codex members and observers interested in participating in the electronic working group should provide their name, title and e-mail address to USCodex@fsis.usda.gov by May 18, 2012.
The Phytosanitary Certificate and Issuance Tracking (PCIT) system was down on the afternoon of May 10, 2012, reports the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. APHIS sent out several emails, beginning at about 12:30 p.m., saying PCIT was down due to a hardware problem at the hosting facility. APHIS said the PCIT application was then failed over to the Disaster Recovery site. At about 5 p.m., an APHIS email said all functionality in PCIT had been restored, except certificate printing may be slow. APHIS said the PCIT Training Site will be unavailable until it is failed back to the primary production site.
On May 9, 2012, the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued emails May 9, 2012 announcing changes to some Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service said comments are due by May 14, 2012 by non-U.S. participants of a Codex physical working group on a draft revision of Principles for the Establishment and Application of Microbiological Criteria for Foods (CAC/GL 21-1997) which was prepared by the co-chairs of the physical working group that will meet in Parma, Italy, May 29-June 1, 2012. U.S. comments were due by May 9.
On May 8, 2012, the Foreign Agricultural Service issued the following GAIN reports:
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service issued emails May 8 announcing changes to some Plant Protection and Quarantine (PPQ) electronic manuals. While some changes are minor, other changes may affect the admissibility of the plant products, including fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service said the Codex Committee on Food Labeling (CCFL) will hold its 40th Session in Ottawa, Canada, May 14-18, 2012. The session will feature two main topics: (1) revision of the Guidelines for the Use of Nutrition and Health Claims (CAC/GL 23-1997); and (2) Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and Marketing of Organically Produced Foods.