By Jon Emont and Jesse Newman
Amazon.com Inc. is barring foreign sales of seeds into the U.S.
after thousands of suspicious packets, many postmarked from China,
arrived at households around the world this summer.
The move by Amazon comes as the mystery seeds led U.S. officials
to raise alarms about the ease with which seed sales can occur on
e-commerce sites, creating potential threats to U.S.
agriculture.
Amazon informed foreign sellers that, effective Sept. 3, it
would no longer allow the import of plant or seed products,
according to an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal. The email
said some overseas sellers would have their offers removed from
Amazon the same day.
Amazon also updated its public rulebook to reflect the new
policy, saying that importing seeds into the U.S., or the sale of
seeds within the U.S. by non-U.S. residents, is prohibited.
On Saturday, a merchant based in East Asia who sells Chinese
seeds to Amazon customers in the U.S. said that his product had
been removed by Amazon.
In its email to foreign seed sellers informing them of its new
policy, Amazon said the action was "part of our ongoing efforts to
protect our customers and enhance the customer experience." A
spokesperson for Amazon didn't immediately have further comment
Saturday.
The policy change comes as multiple agencies, including the U.S.
Agriculture Department, U.S. Department of Homeland Security's
Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Postal Service and state
departments of agriculture, are investigating the mysterious seed
shipments.
In recent months, thousands of people around the U.S. received
in the mail seeds they didn't order. Most were postmarked from
China, and the shipments were often marked as jewelry, toys or
other goods. Canada and the U.K. have been among other countries
experiencing the same phenomenon.
U.S. agriculture officials have said they are working with
officials in China to determine who is sending the seed packages
and to stop future shipments. China's Foreign Ministry said in July
that mailing labels on the seed packages were forged and that China
had asked the U.S. to send packages for investigation.
The USDA says it has worked with e-commerce companies for years
to ensure they include information about USDA regulations on their
sites and to remove sellers that illegally shipped agricultural
material, including seeds. Since the mysterious mailings, however,
the USDA says it has ramped up this work.
"E-commerce has presented us with a unique challenge," Osama
El-Lissy, a deputy administrator for the USDA's Animal and Plant
Health Inspection Service, said in an interview on Wednesday.
"These sellers must meet the U.S.'s regulatory requirements."
Agriculture officials have been concerned the seeds could
introduce invasive species, weeds, pests or diseases that might
harm U.S. agriculture. On Wednesday, Mr. El-Lissy said the USDA had
received nearly 20,000 reports from seed recipients and collected
some 9,000 packages. The USDA has so far assessed more than 2,500
of those packages, he said.
Mr. El-Lissy said the USDA has identified several seeds of
noxious weeds, called dodder and water spinach. The agency has also
found diseases known to occur in China, called pospiviroid and
spindle tuber viroid, in seeds, as well as a few pests of
significance: an immature wasp and a larval seed beetle.
As it collects the seed packages, sent to people across all 50
states, the USDA has been routing them to botanists, who are
examining the seeds to determine their species and whether any are
on a federal list of noxious weeds, which are potentially harmful.
Seeds may then be sent to a Maryland laboratory for DNA testing to
determine whether they carry pathogens that can cause plant
diseases.
Mr. El-Lissy said the findings to date haven't sparked
significant concern, or necessitated the enactment of a federal
emergency-response plan. Still, he said, the USDA is very concerned
about the potential that one or more of the seed packages could
contain a threat to U.S. agriculture. The agency can take steps to
increase pest surveillance and prepare to respond quickly should it
detect something in an agricultural region or the environment, Mr.
El-Lissy said.
Authorities say the exact purpose of sending the unsolicited
seed packages remains unclear but that a leading explanation is
that they are part of a "brushing scam." In these scams vendors
selling through online retailers like Amazon pay "brushers" to
place orders for their products, shipping packages with low-value
or no contents to strangers. Brushers then pose as the buyers and
post fake customer reviews to boost the vendor's sales, sometimes
posting the reviews to other products.
In addition to being useful in brushing, seeds are also highly
lucrative as a genuine e-commerce product, according to sellers
based in China and elsewhere in Asia. High margins make the seed
business attractive to foreign sellers, as a seed packet that costs
$1.50 to buy from Chinese suppliers can retail for around $10 on
Amazon, one seller said. Shipping fees are negligible on the
ultralight packages.
Amazon's removal of seed offers is to take place in stages, per
the Sept. 3 email to foreign seed sellers. Foreign merchants who
ship their seeds directly to U.S. customers will have their offers
removed immediately. Those who rely on Amazon to fulfill their
orders -- and have inventory stored in Amazon warehouses -- will
have their offers removed starting Sept. 30, according to the
email.
Write to Jon Emont at jonathan.emont@wsj.com and Jesse Newman at
jesse.newman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 05, 2020 15:41 ET (19:41 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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