In today’s global environment, survey results provide massive amounts of data not only to make decisions about how PPQ and cooperators will respond to specific pest issues, but also – and ever more frequently - to describe immediate pest status to senior level federal and state policy makers, agricultural stakeholders and trading partners.
Federally sponsored plant pest, disease and noxious weed survey initiatives take many forms. All initiatives provide vital information – presence or absence, geographical distribution, population density, etc., which PPQ and cooperating agencies use to 1) ensure prompt response, including eradication projects, for pest outbreaks, 2) ensure sound management strategies for pests that have established themselves in the country and 3) demonstrate to trading partners that agricultural commodities meet import requirements.
This environment forces PPQ to build data management systems that can consolidate and translate data into quality information and provide that information, at the right time, to these key regulatory partners and stakeholders in the plant protection and agricultural trade environment.
PPQ has developed the Integrated Plant Health Information System (IPHIS) with the above needs in mind. When fully developed, IPHIS will provide an environment and process to gather quality information from all core functions of PPQ (survey, regulatory, diagnostics, and control) in a timely or “real-time” manner, and make that information available to key regulatory partners and stakeholders. PPQ’s long term vision is to utilize IPHIS as the point of entry for all emergency and domestic program related agricultural activity.