PGA Filing Requirements for Ag Products Set to Expand as More USDA Message Sets Come Online

The Agricultural Marketing Service has secured funding for its Section 8(e) partner government agency (PGA) message set for imports of specialty crops, and now awaits CBP programming before it can move forward with full implementation, said Brian Barber of Wilson International during a panel discussion at the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America annual conference May 3.

Implementation of the Section 8(e) PGA message set, along with those of other U.S. Department of Agriculture subagencies that have recently or are soon planned to move forward, means importers of some agricultural goods could find themselves navigating a maze of ACE filing requirements for their products. “It’s going to get fun soon, if we’re not having enough fun already,” Barber said.

The Section 8(e) requirements, overseen by USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, apply to 14 products: avocados, dates, hazelnuts, grapefruit, table grapes, kiwifruit, olives, onions, oranges, Irish potatoes, pistachios, raisins, field-grown tomatoes and walnuts. Under Section 8(e), imports of these products must be inspected domestically or overseas to ensure they meet the same or comparable grade requirements as those for domestically grown produce.

AMS also oversees USDA’s National Organic Program, and is also working toward PGA message set requirements for organic products. A working group has been created on ACE filing for organics, and among other questions, it remains to be seen how tariff flagging is going to work, and whether the tariff schedule will need to be expanded or whether disclaims will be used, Barber said. Full implementation of PGA filing for organics likely won’t be seen until somewhere early- to mid-2022, he said.

Combined with full enforcement of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service’s “Core” PGA message set that began in March (see 2103150037), filers of some products could see an explosion of overlapping PGA filing requirements over the next couple of years. Beyond FDA’s PGA message set, some filers will also have to file APHIS core data, AMS Section 8(e) data for specialty crops, and potentially AMS organic program data on a given entry, Barber said. “It’s about to get more interesting.”