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Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Using search to track and eliminate online sales of illegal plants and animals

U.S. Department of Agriculture USDA out its diverse protection responsibilities, APHIS makes every effort to address the Headquarters Part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture needs of all those involved in the U.S. Raleigh, North Carolina (USDA), the Animal and Plant Health agricultural sector. Inspection Service’s (APHIS) mission is an Industry integral part of U.S. Department of Challenge Government Agriculture’s efforts to provide the Nation with safe and affordable food. Without APHIS The rapid adoption of e-commerce during the Benefits: protecting the U.S’s animal and plant last decade has complicated APHIS’ objective • Quickly searches the Web for resources from agricultural pests and of preventing the importation of illegal plants sites advertising dangerous diseases, threats to our food supply and to our and animals. The USDA quickly realized that animals, animal products, and Nation’s economy would be enormous. they needed a new strategy for managing the plants. threats posed by Web sales of invasive For example, if Mediterranean fruit flies and species. • Manages a database of Asian longhorned beetles, two major violating sites and tracks them agricultural pests, were left unchecked by Explained Ian Winborne, APHIS project in the future. APHIS, production and marketing losses of manager for the pest-management center, “the several billions of dollars would occur annually agency manages threats from other areas by • Flexible platform delivers in this country. And, if APHIS was not on the doing things like checking cargo as it comes unlimited scalability for future job as the first line of defense, 24 hours a day, into ports, going to nurseries to see what expansion and additional 7 days a week, animal diseases like foot-and- they’re selling, and going to markets to see research capabilities. mouth disease and bovine spongiform what kind of animal products, fruits, and encephalopathy (mad cow disease) could vegetables they’re selling. But until recently, • Processes multiple languages devastate our livestock industry and our food they had no way to manage what was going – executes international supply. All of these plant and animal pests and on online.” searches • Searches for similar disease threats could cost billions of dollars in and variations of terms for a lost domestic and international markets and To help the USDA utilize technology comprehensive search. have a huge impact on U.S. consumers, but developments, the National Science APHIS has aggressively and successfully Foundation Center for Integrated Pest • The system has already worked to prevent and respond to these Management (CIPM), established in 1991, has identified 6,568 distinct pages situations. been working in conjunction with APHIS and on Web sites belonging to U.S. serves a lead role in technology development, suppliers that may be selling In response to needs expressed by the program implementation, training, and public banned plants (4,790 pages), American people and Congress, APHIS’ awareness for IPM at the state, regional, and mollusks (734 pages). protection role also includes wildlife damage national level. management, the welfare of animals, human health and safety, and ecosystems vulnerable With technology innovation being one of to invasive pests and pathogens. In carrying CIPM’s directives, APHIS turned to CIPM to

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‘We started looking at whether there were illegal plants or illegal animals and other things being sold lead a project that would utilize a software Benefits and Results online. And lo and behold, it application that would instantly identify, didn’t take long. I don’t know search, and retrieve information from the The FAST ESP–based application, now whether you remember the thousands of Web sites selling illegal plants called the Agricultural Internet Monitoring mad-cow disease scare in and animals. System (AIMS), is to be officially unveiled in January 2005, but has already identified Great Britain. We could find Solution 6,568 distinct pages on Web sites sites in the U.S. that were belonging to U.S. suppliers that may be selling unprocessed British CIPM researched offerings from numerous selling banned plants (4,790 pages), beef. So all of a sudden there software vendors and determined that FAST’s mollusks (734 pages), and insects (1,044 was a real reason to do this. concept of a search derivative application pages). Those numbers could rise That’s when we turned to based on the company’s FAST Enterprise dramatically as researchers continue to FAST for help.’ Search Platform™ (FAST ESP™), was the expand the parameters of the solution. logical choice upon which to build this solution. — Ron Stinner, Director, National Specifically, FAST ESP was chosen for the Initially, the AIMS Web-scanning program Science Foundation Center for innovation of the search technology and will focus on U.S. sales of about 600 Integrated Pest Management, product features, reasonable pricing, as well organisms, including plants and animals. North Carolina State University as FAST’s software engineers’ ability to There are future plans to expand the aggressively meet project deadlines. system to monitor international Web sites. FAST’s application is infinitely scalable, which FAST ESP provides CIPM with the ability to will allow AIMS to work with similarly crawl the Web, find sites advertising concerned countries like Australia and Britain dangerous animals, animal products, and to develop an information-sharing system to plants, and then organize the results. By using identify and shut down operations selling the FAST-based application, USDA agents are invasive plants. able to manage sites singled out for scrutiny, evaluate them for risk, determine if they violate As soon as January, U.S. sellers of regulated regulations, and track those cases as field plants will begin to get e-mail notices from inquiries are made. APHIS warning them to produce a federal permit to sell such plants—or stop selling FAST also provides additional value with them. Businesses selling banned plants can features specific to CIPM’s needs. “For be fined up to $250,000 under federal law, example, they can handle different while smuggling them into the U.S. can bring languages,” said Stinner. “As this program criminal penalties. progresses, we’re going to need to look at a number of different languages. One of our Why FAST? biggest problems is meat products from Southeast Asia.” CIPM’s application can also FAST ESP provided CIPM with all the features search for similar and related terms, as well as and functionality it needed to develop an numerous variations, “so that we didn’t have to application quickly, but it also provided a think of every single word that meant ‘sold’ or platform for future growth so AIMS can evolve ‘selling’ or ‘for sale.’ ” as the number of illegal plant and animal This is second page header (with 4 para marks ahead of it)

vendors expands exponentially. “We would provided us with a solution that not only have an extremely difficult time developing this addresses our current requirements, but given application with other software vendors the platform’s flexibility and scalability, we’re because FAST ESP is engineered for projects confident we can iterate our application as like ours in mind,” added Stinner. “FAST necessary.”

For more information about FAST, please visit: www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published May 2009