The primary purpose of this agreement is to support technical solutions to exotic pest treatment information collection and analysis in order to support the safeguarding of US agriculture

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) awarded a cooperative agreement to North Carolina State University for $294,611, obligated on January 1, 2026, under the Plant and Animal Disease, Pest Control, and Animal Care program (CFDA 10.025).

The award supports technical development and maintenance of the Commodity Treatment Information System (CTIS), a web-accessible suite of applications that collects, tracks, and disseminates quarantine treatment data for exotic pests and commodities affecting U.S. agriculture. North Carolina State University will provide IT personnel to develop and maintain core system components and functionality, while APHIS will identify programming and support action items, liaise with analysts to surface data gaps and reporting needs, provide user group training and updates, and supply administrative support. The collaboration aims to expand and update CTIS per agency requirements, ensuring continuity of scientific support for phytosanitary efforts that protect plant resources and delivering relevant treatment information to agency personnel and end-user groups.

Performance of work occurs in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a period of performance from January 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026.

The commodity treatment information system is a web-accessible suite of applications that tracks pests and/or commodities that undergo quarantine treatments. The ctis system facilitates the collection of exotic pest treatment information and its rapid and effective dissemination to application end users. Work conducted in this proposal would be completed by the north carolina state university in cooperation with PPQ, and would focus on those pests and commodities of concern to the US agricultural industry. Collaboration efforts between USDA and the university system would benefit a long term approach, building a program of national significance. The objective of this project is to continue the support of the current system and to expand and update the commodity treatment information system per the needs of the agency. Benefits of this work will include continuity of scientific support to phytosanitary efforts that protect plant resources. Relevant information will be collected and delivered to agency personnel and selected end-user groups. Ongoing and new relationships with ctis collaborators will be further developed and maintained. PPQ will provide the following in support of the proposal: development of a list of programming/support action items. Liaison with the PPQ analysts to determine data gaps, reporting needs and other application improvements. Provide updates and training to ctis user groups. Administrative support to maintain the resulting cooperative agreement. North carolina state university will provide the following in support IT personnel to develop core system components and functionality. Administrative support to maintain the resulting cooperative agreement. Under the combined leadership and cooperation of a PPQ NOM, and support staff, ncsu PI and cipm technical support staff, this program will work collaboratively to carry out all activities associated with the continued support and development of ctis. During the period of performance of this project, cipm will provide support in the following areas: application software operations & maintenance: cipm shall provide technical and administrative support for the maintenance of application systems. Work shall include all system and application development life cycle tasks in accordance with the sdlc as well as other federal, USDA and aphis rules, regulations and guiding policies/procedures. Additional activities within this tasking area include granting access to systems for new accounts, maintaining application system tables, and setting up new roles. Cipm shall: maintain current treatment index, and the home page web site. Update the cold treatment, methyl bromide fumigation (429), import irradiation, niger seed web based applications, "ships and vessels and containers", "cold treatment fruit cutting", and "hot water cutting report" database applications and databases. Complete all updates and improvements within proposed/assigned deadline. Notify the adodr or NOM if unable to meet deadlines and work with them to adjust schedule accordingly. Support application information system security, agmax, csam and fisma requirements progress status reports provided during weekly or BI-weekly meetings to the adodr and/or NOM provide a monthly "data dump" of each ctis module to PPQ. Tables and data are to be delivered in MS access 2016 format or higher within three business days from the first date of each month. Provide a scope of work and an estimate of level of effort to build table relations. Provide a scope of work and an estimate of level of effort to build user guides for ctis. All activities will occur concurrently throughout the project cycle. A list of 2024 ctis tasks and their associated change requests are maintained on the USDA PPQ sharepoint drive. Information on commodity treatments will be maintained in the system. This may include data collected from sources external to the USDA. The data will be warehoused within a secure database operated and maintained by cipm. Access will be via a secure web-based application served from a cipm web server. Aphis will have full access to all data in the system, while retaining ownership of aphis-generated data. IT should be noted that IT may be necessary to dynamically reassign project priorities and milestones in order to support PPQ information requests and commodity treatment activities. Weekly staff meetings will review project progress in order to track program accomplishments. During these reviews, USDA and ncsu project leaders may RE-assign project tasks and/or personnel to meet project goals and accomplishments. One full-time cold fusion senior developer to develop and maintain the ctis web applications and databases. One part-time principal investigator to supervise, manage, and develop and maintain the ctis web applications and databases. One part-time program manager to manage the project finance preparation and reporting. One part-time ctis system administrator professional to provide system and database administration for the web application. Security assessment and authorization compliance salaries will support agmax, csam and fisma efforts on this project is perform by three IT operation administrators. Supplies to be purchased may include, but are not restricted to computer, computer software. Domestic travel for cipm staff is planned in FY 2025 to attend the adobe coldfusion annual workshop/conference. Annual maintenance renewals for software and hardware used to support this project. Cooperator personnel supporting this project and some computer equipment requiring secure accommodations have been located in cipm offices off-campus. Information on commodity treatments will be archived within the cipm network domain. The cipm information system has been SA & a certified to comply with USDA data standards and security requirement. Aphis will have full access to all data in the system, while retaining ownership of aphis-generated data.