RickCorey said:
Overthinking is my middle name! But he who does the work gets to make the rules. And I agree with you that we don't need a 500-page operations manual. The fewer rules that are set up, the less inconvenient it will be when some fail to notice or comply with them. Having a fallback rule is great: "You have to do X, but if you don;t, Y will happen". Then there's no hassle.
RickCorey said:
Even the international phytosanitary certificates have been successfully ignored by many seed swaps, including one hosted in Canada (Heather's Tomato and Pepper Swap) , and one that shipped to several European countries (Ella's Hog Wild Piggy Swap). I don't dispute Caroline - they apparently are required by law, but I have yet to lose a packet sent to another country, or failed to receive one I expected.
If anyone in another country really wants to get in on the USA swap, maybe this would be a work-around:
- The person outside the USA could find a volunteer local proxy inside the US.
- Participate in the online bidding and offering.
- Send seeds to the Volunteer Local Proxy and hope they aren't confiscated.
- The VLP mails those seeds to Jay along with the Proxy's offered seeds. (No extra postage if they fit).
- Jay mails back to the VLP the VLP's seeds and also the seeds requested by the distant trader.
- (Still no extra postage if it all fits in one flat rate box.)
- The VLP tries to mail the seeds back overseas.
I suggest this because the phyto certificate itself adds no safety or cleanliness. We would be mailing the same seeds around anyway, regardless of whether or not someone makes the effort to do the paperwork.
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