History of the Development of ANBP
Quality Assurance: the Producer
Approach
The original ANBP idea was that quality
assessments needed to start with assessing
inputs into production and end with the cus-
tomer. Eventually it was decided that the
market-place was the most important and
effective ‘police force’ for addressing quality
issues. Thus, the producers’ job was to create
the tools whereby the market could assess
quality.
Certification discussions, 1990–1992At first, the Quality Control Committee
(QCC) investigated the possibility of creating
a certification process. A twofold process of
certifying insectaries for acceptable in-house
quality control and of quality evaluations by
independent laboratories was envisioned. A
survey was sent to producer members,
which asked detailed questions on rearing
protocols. Some insectaries shared this infor-
mation quickly, while others held this infor-
mation as proprietary. Eventually, members
decided that in-house rearing should remain
proprietary and that product should be eval-
uated at the end of production, not during
production (L.A. Merrill, 1995, unpublished).
In 1992, the QCC had received guideline
submissions for ‘live product arrival to dis-
tributor or supplier’ from two producers.
Their information included: product exami-
nation on arrival, identification, short-term
storage, long-term storage where applicable,
shipping and random-sampling information.
Certification was one thing, but the proce-
dure for determining that a product meets or
fails certification standards created a quag-
mire of issues that caused these efforts
rapidly to come to a halt. The QCC avoided
further controversy by turning to proactive
steps to build ethics into the framework of
how products were represented for sale.
They proceeded to avoid action in regard to
procedures that by their very nature
involved punitive measures, leaving that to
the discretion of the market-place.
Product profiles, 1991The next step of the QCC was to address a
malpractice issue: some beneficial insects
were being sold for purposes that were
unsupportable. For example, Trichogramma
species were being sold for controlling gypsy
moths. The QCC began work to ensure that
factual information was available to the con-
sumer to support the appropriate use of bio-
logical controls. Producers were requested to
list necessary factual information on a prod-
uct profile to help the market use the prod-
ucts properly. The intent was that the profiles
be concise, easy-to-read documents geared to
the distributor and end-user.
The word ‘label’ was avoided in order to
avoid confusion with the regulatory require-
ments of the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) for pesticide labels. EPA pesti-
cide-label requirements would represent an
onerous burden on small businesses.
Required safety data cost millions of dollars
and there are annual federal and state fees
required for registration of these labels. The
information guidelines were called ‘product
profiles’. During 1992, the committee
received ‘product profile’ submissions from
five producers, which included: common
name, origin, scientific name, environmental
needs, biology, hosts, quantity, release
instructions, producer name, compatibility
with pesticides and warranty and disclaimer
(optional). Eventually, 22 product profiles
were submitted by at least 12 producers
(L.A. Merrill and C.S. Glenister, 20 July 1995,
unpublished).Quality assurance paper, 1993–1998An intense effort by biological control pro-
ducers, practitioners and researchers to
record the industry status of development
and needs took place during a conference in- The presentations and the book result-
ing from that meeting (Ridgway et al., 1998)
covered concepts, practices and needs in
quality assurance and regulation, as well as
biological control in greenhouses, field crops,
ornamentals, vegetables and dairies. The
chapter on quality assurance (Penn et al.,
206 C.S. Glenister et al.