Comment from William Bethea

I have been a vegetable farmer in SW Florida for 35 years. We have been plagued with many pests that come through the ports on the east coast. None of the measures mentioned in this proposal as "conditions" are preventitive in and of themselves. They sound good and may be well intentioned, however, they are not woth a hill of beans in reality. These are good procedures for a grower's IPM program, but we all know the sampling will not be on 100% of the fruit and by this alone these "conditions" will not in your words "prevent quarantined pests from entering the U.S." Please do not allow untreated pepper to enter our shores!