The Ames, Iowa-based Council for Agricultural Science and Technology recently issued a report on the dangers posed by invasive pests to agriculture, public health, and natural ecosystems. A six-member task force co-chaired by Don Huber of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., and Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, documented research on the problem and recommended how to alleviate it.
"If a pest can enter the United States, over time, it will find a way here, so a means must be found to develop appropriate, feasible, economic, and cost-effective quarantine and control procedures," says Huber. The report insists that a 'stew' of invasive pests and crops have breached "the once formidable geographic barriers posed by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through travel, trade, and transportation. The ecology of the western hemisphere has been changed by agricultural, social, and industrial activities."
The stew includes every class of organism,...
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