Cultivated data

CARL HARPER WAS TIRED OF TYPING.Harper, a senior nursery inspector atthe University of Kentucky's Office of theState Entomologist, used to type up phytosanitarycertificates, an official documentissued by an exportingcountry that certifies that ashipment meets the planthealth regulations of the importingcountry. Harper hadestablished his own system totrack the documents and invoicesinvolved in the process.'We actually used WordStarto set up the forms, if you canremember back that far,' hesaid.Harper's typing days areover, or at least much reduced.He's one of the thousandsof workers in governmentand the agriculturalindustry who use the PhytosanitaryCertificate Issuanceand Tracking (PCIT) system, a secure,Web-enabled Java application that'saccessible from all Web browsers.Plants exported from the United States toother countries have to be certified as pestfree.The guarantee of pest-free exports formany years has been the internationally acceptedphytosanitary certificate, an indicatorthat a plant shipment has met the importercountry's plant health requirements.The Agriculture Department's Animaland Plant Health Inspection Service(APHIS) issues about 500,000 phytosanitarycertificates each year.But as recently as three years ago, thiscertificate process was all paper-based,said Christian Dellis, senior export specialistat APHIS.The process has thousands of differentvariables that require tracking. The UnitedStates exports as many as 60,000 differentspecies of plants, Dellis said. Eachcountry has different requirementsfor inspection and certification,and tracking shipmentsoverseas could take aslong as two or three weeks,Dellis said.Dellis and his team at APHISdecided to translate the phytosanitarycertificate process tothe Web. The resulting Webbasedsystem, PCIT, now accommodatesbetween 5,000and 6,000 industry users andabout 2,000 governmentusers, Dellis said. Users canpay fees online through Treasury'sPay.gov online paymentsystem.One problem Dellis and the PCIT project encountered was user resistance.A lot of people had developed homegrownphytosanitary certificate systems, Dellis said.For example, the citrus industry in Californiahad its own system.Some state agriculture departments hadalso developed certificate tracking systems,such as Harper's.Harper's primary job is licensing nurseries,whether they're at Wal-Mart, garden centersor any operation that sells plants to the public. Harper works with USDA to survey exoticpests, such as gypsy moths, light brownapple moths and the emerald ash borer,which can devastate ash tree populations. Healso wrote phytosanitary certificates.Harper developed his own phytosanitary certificatedatabase using Microsoft Access. He hadset it up so that all he had to do was print thecertificate on a dot-matrix printer and sign it.Harper also did the billing and invoices for thecertificates.'Then I heard there were these grumblingsabout APHIS coming up with their own deal,'he said. 'I was not thrilled with the idea at first,but by gum, we were going to have to like it.'But when Dellis met with him to demonstratethe PCIT system, Harper changed hismind. 'I don't want to go back to my system,'he said.Harper receives applications already typed.'And it's fairly user-friendly,' he said. 'Theonly people who don't like it are those whofight using the computer for their e-mail.'The only downside is that sometimes theserver is slow, but Harper attributes that to'students here on campus bogging down theserver.' PCIT seems faster when he logs onfrom home, he said.Harper said he appreciates APHIS developers'willingness to listen to user suggestionsand make changes if they can.PCIT has dramatically quickened the plantexport process, Dellis said.A recent corn seed shipment to Chile illustratedthe speed of PCIT. 'The shipment wasreleased in a matter of hours, versus the oneto two weeks it used to take us to deal withthe paperwork issues,' Dellis said.The process still uses some paper, Dellissaid. 'We still print off the certificates on securitypaper,' he said. But APHIS is workingto get PCIT to exchange certificates 100 percentelectronically.'We've had 17 releases of PCIT,' Dellis said.'That's amounted to 307 changes to the system,and they all came from users. You'llnever get it perfect, but if you listen to everybody,especially people who use it on a dayto-day basis, you can build a system thatmeets as many user requests as possible.'Harper agreed that this openness to usersuggestion is critical to PCIT's success.'Somebody listens, takes suggestions and respondsback with 'Yes, we can do it,' or 'No,that's not possible.' 'XXXSPLITXXX-Shortly before the developmentof the PhytosanitaryCertificate Issuance andTracking system, many ofthe qualified AgricultureDepartment officials whoprocessed phytosanitarycertificates were reassignedto work for the HomelandSecurity Department, USDAofficials said.The paper-intensive methodsthe department hadbeen using when it had moreemployees were no longerfeasible, USDA officials said.That made PCIT's developmentmore urgent.To build the PCIT system,USDA's Animal and PlantHealth Inspection Servicewanted hardware, softwareand connections that would beportable, reusable and scalable,said Christian Dellis, seniorexport specialist at APHIS.The secure Web-enabledJava application has anunderlying Oracle database.The USDA National Information Technology Center (NITC) hosts the application on its servers. The application developer is EDS, a Hewlett-Packard company.The site consists of a dedicatedDell PowerEdge 2950Web server that runsWindows 2003, a DellPowerEdge 6850 applicationsserver, and an IBMRS/6000 P630 running AIXfor the shared database andreports server. Everythingbut the Web server operatesbehind NITC firewalls.PCIT also has a disasterrecovery and staging environment.A storage-area networklinks disaster recoveryand production.Export data is available atthe touch of a button, lettingUSDA officials respond toquestions from foreign tradingpartners in seconds,APHIS officials said.