Business Impact Article - Posted 5/29/2009
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Using Search to Track and Eliminate Online Sales of Illegal Plants and Animals
The mission of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is an integral part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) efforts to provide the Nation with safe and affordable food. Without APHIS protecting U.S. animal and plant resources from pests and diseases, threats to our food supply and to our Nation’s economy would be enormous. The rapid adoption of e-commerce during the last decade has complicated the objective of preventing the importation of illegal plants and animals. The USDA realized that it needed a new strategy for managing the threats posed by Web sales of invasive species. CIPM researched offerings from numerous software vendors and chose FAST ESP for the innovation of the search technology and product features, reasonable pricing, as well as FAST’s software engineers’ ability to aggressively meet project deadlines.
USDA
Part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) mission is an integral part of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s efforts to provide the Nation with safe and affordable food. Without APHIS protecting the U.S.'s animal and plant resources from agricultural pests and diseases, threats to our food supply and to our Nation’s economy would be enormous.
For example, if Mediterranean fruit flies and Asian longhorned beetles, two major agricultural pests, were left unchecked by APHIS, production and marketing losses of several billions of dollars would occur annually in this country. And, if APHIS was not on the job as the first line of defense, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, animal diseases like foot-and-mouth disease and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) could
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We started looking at whether there were illegal plants or illegal animals and other things being sold online. And lo and behold, it didn’t take long. I don’t know whether you remember the mad-cow disease scare in Great Britain. We could find sites in the U.S. that were selling unprocessed British beef. So all of a sudden there was a real reason to do this. That’s when we turned to FAST for help. |
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Ron Stinner
Director, National Science Foundation Center for Integrated Pest Management, North Carolina State University |
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devastate our livestock industry and our food supply. All of these plant and animal pests and disease threats could cost billions of dollars in lost domestic and international markets and have a huge impact on U.S. consumers, but APHIS has aggressively and successfully worked to prevent and respond to these situations.
In response to needs expressed by the American people and Congress, APHIS’ protection role also includes wildlife damage management, the welfare of animals, human health and safety, and ecosystems vulnerable to invasive pests and pathogens. In carrying out its diverse protection responsibilities, APHIS makes every effort to address the needs of all those involved in the U.S. agricultural sector.
Challenge
The rapid adoption of e-commerce during the last decade has complicated APHIS’ objective of preventing the importation of illegal plants and animals. The USDA quickly realized that they needed a new strategy for managing the threats posed by Web sales of invasive species.
Explained Ian Winborne, APHIS project manager for the pest-management center, “the agency manages threats from other areas by doing things like checking cargo as it comes into ports, going to nurseries to see what they’re selling, and going to markets to see what kind of animal products, fruits, and vegetables they’re selling. But until recently, they had no way to manage what was going on online.”
To help the USDA utilize technology developments, the National Science Foundation Center for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM), established in 1991, has been working in conjunction with APHIS and serves a lead role in technology development, program implementation, training, and public awareness for IPM at the state, regional, and national level.
With technology innovation being one of CIPM’s directives, APHIS turned to CIPM to lead a project that would utilize a software application that would instantly identify, search, and retrieve information from the thousands of Web sites selling illegal plants and animals.
Solution
CIPM researched offerings from numerous software vendors and determined that FAST’s concept of a search derivative application based on the company’s FAST Enterprise Search Platform™ (FAST ESP™), was the logical choice upon which to build this solution. Specifically, FAST ESP was chosen for the innovation of the search technology and product features, reasonable pricing, as well as FAST’s software engineers’ ability to aggressively meet project deadlines.
FAST ESP provides CIPM with the ability to crawl the Web, find sites advertising dangerous animals, animal products, and plants, and then organize the results. By using the FAST-based application, USDA agents are able to manage sites singled out for scrutiny, evaluate them for risk, determine if they violate regulations, and track those cases as field inquiries are made.
FAST also provides additional value with features specific to CIPM’s needs. “For example, they can handle different languages,” said Stinner. “As this program progresses, we’re going to need to look at a number of different languages. One of our biggest problems is meat products from Southeast Asia.” CIPM’s application can also search for similar and related terms, as well as numerous variations, “so that we didn’t have to think of every single word that meant ‘sold’ or ‘selling’ or ‘for sale.’ ”
Benefits and Results
The FAST ESP–based application, now called the Agricultural Internet Monitoring System (AIMS), is to be officially unveiled in January 2005, but has already identified 6,568 distinct pages on Web sites belonging to U.S. suppliers that may be selling banned plants (4,790 pages), mollusks (734 pages), and insects (1,044 pages). Those numbers could rise dramatically as researchers continue to expand the parameters of the solution.
Initially, the AIMS Web-scanning program will focus on U.S. sales of about 600 organisms, including plants and animals. There are future plans to expand the system to monitor international Web sites. FAST’s application is infinitely scalable, which will allow AIMS to work with similarly concerned countries like Australia and Britain to develop an information-sharing system to identify and shut down operations selling invasive plants.
As soon as January, U.S. sellers of regulated plants will begin to get e-mail notices from APHIS warning them to produce a federal permit to sell such plants—or stop selling them. Businesses selling banned plants can be fined up to $250,000 under federal law, while smuggling them into the U.S. can bring criminal penalties.
Why FAST?
FAST ESP provided CIPM with all the features and functionality it needed to develop an application quickly, but it also provided a platform for future growth so AIMS can evolve as the number of illegal plant and animal vendors expands exponentially. “We would have an extremely difficult time developing this application with other software vendors because FAST ESP is engineered for projects like ours in mind,” added Stinner. “FAST provided us with a solution that not only addresses our current requirements, but given the platform’s flexibility and scalability we’re confident we can iterate our application as necessary.”
For more information about FAST please visit:
www.microsoft.com/enterprisesearch.
