The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is publishing a new 5-year strategic plan. It incorporates input they received from stakeholders on the strategic framework — a summarized version of the plan that APHIS published in June 2022. The plan includes six strategic goals.
They focus on:
- Protecting agriculture from plant and animal diseases and pests
- Positioning the agency’s workforce to better meet current and future challenges
- Delivering solutions that reduce the impacts of zoonotic and emerging diseases, as well as ecosystem changes, such as climate change
- Expanding safe trade
- Managing wildlife diseases
- Promoting the welfare of animals.
APHIS also released a strategic foresight report. It examines 10 societal, environmental and technological trends and several future scenarios that the agency must be prepared to navigate.
They include:
- Rise in security threats
- Escalation of climate change threats
- Political, geographical and economic division
- Increasing dependence on data analytics
- Advances in science and technology
- Changes in production practices
- Evolving perceptions around animal welfare and wildlife in human society
- Globalization
- Rising global health threats
- The changing federal workforce.
The strategic plan and foresight report are available on the APHIS website at https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/banner/aboutaphis/SA_Overview.
Source: USDA's APHIS
