Regulatory Programs (MRP) Under Secretary Greg Ibach, and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) Deputy Administrator Osama El-Lissy with Secretary Sonny Perdue's signed declaration at the Pink Bollworm Eradication Ceremony, held at the Westhaven Cotton Company gin, in Lemoore, CA, on November 8, 2018. U.S. cotton production accounts for nearly 30 percent of global trade in raw cotton and $27 billion in products and services annually. It also provides hundreds of thousands of jobs across many sectors. Pink bollworm is a significant pest of cotton that was not successfully controlled until APHIS, the state departments of agriculture, and the cotton industry mounted a coordinated and integrated pest management program. The eradication of pink bollworm is the direct result of this cooperative effort. APHISâ contributions include establishing domestic regulations and releasing sterile pink bollworm moths over infested areas. Pink bollworm was first detected in Hearne, Texas, in 1917. By the mid-1950âs, the pest had spread to surrounding states and eventually reached California in 1963. Many of these infestations were suppressed through cooperative federal, state and industry programs. In 1955, APHIS established a domestic pink bollworm quarantine for infested states. Since 2000, APHIS has worked closely with the state departments of agriculture in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas, and the cotton industry to carry out rigorous control and regulatory activities aimed at eliminating pink bollworm from these States, which were the only ones that remained under quarantine. As a result of these cooperative efforts, APHIS lifted the domestic quarantine for pink bollworm on September 26, 2018from Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas. A small wild pink bollworm colony exists in the Florida Everglades where there is no commercial cotton production. The area will remain under state quarantine. For more information, please see: www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2018/10/19/usda-announc... and www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/planthealth/plant-pest-...