While enjoying your favorite vacation, it is indeed inevitable falling in love not just with the culture and the locals but also the food, fruits, and vegetables that you get to encounter during your trip. This could be the reason why a lot of people tend to bring some of these consumables back to their country. But did you know that it is illegal for some countries to do that?
In New York's John F. Kennedy Airport's Terminal 4 alone, almost 120 pounds or 60 kilograms of food are confiscated every day, which travelers ought to bring from their vacation. All of these items are either destroyed or incinerated. All these they do to protect their country from pests, which could harm their agriculture, according to Business Insider.
"Everything gets destroyed to protect against that pest risk. We are protecting the country's agricultural interests,", explains Ginger Perrone, who is an Agricultural Specialist. "We're protecting against bioterrorism, where someone could intentionally try to bring in items to wreak havoc in this country," she added.
Things haven't always been like this before. It was just when the 9/11 happened that the officials decided to become more alert since there could be possibilities the terrorist can use food as a means to destroy their country by ruining their agricultural resources.
In the past, there are several instances where the US experienced a great loss in their agricultural sales after some unknown people brought some bugs from their trip. The devastating event happened in 2007 to 2014 when Asian citrus psyllid entered the US territory and affected the orange and grapefruit trees, which eventually has been called citrus greening, as reported by The Atlantic. The bugs have invaded the plantation so much that their revenues have decreased by a total of $2.9 billion.
So how are the authorities able to confiscate these foods? In JFK Airport, several sniffing dogs are trained to examine every baggage that passes through the airport. One of them is Biscuit from the Beagle Brigade.
The four-legged officer is trained to detect foods that are hidden in the luggage instead of drugs. According to his trainer, Biscuit is one of the best in his field and even has a 90% accuracy rate.
You may lament over the foods that are confiscated in the airport. But Perrone is securing everyone they are just doing the best that they can to guard their territory. So the next time you are tempted to bring your favorite food on your travel, either you can expect that there will be like Perrone and Biscuit that will examine if it is admissible or not or you could just leave it behind.
