Governor Shapiro’s proposed budget continues support for innovation to keep Pennsylvania’s $132.5 billion agriculture industry on top, and protect it from pest, disease, climate threats.
Harrisburg, PA – Pennsylvania Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding announced today that Bradford, Sullivan, Venango, and Wyoming Counties have been added to the Pennsylvania counties quarantined due to confirmed populations of the invasive pest spotted lanternfly. Redding encouraged Pennsylvanians to look for and destroy lanternfly eggs prior to the spring hatch to help slow the destructive pest’s spread.
"As you clean up your yard or just enjoy beautiful Pennsylvania spring days, you can help keep lanternflies from becoming a summer nuisance and harming our valuable grape and nursery industries," Secretary Redding said. "Every spotted lanternfly egg mass you scrape and squash is 30-50 damage-causing insects that won’t hatch in May.”
The invasive spotted lanternfly was first discovered in the U.S. in Berks County in 2014. While aggressive, coordinated efforts among states and industry have slowed its spread, the insect, which spreads largely by hitching rides on an in cars and other vehicles, continues to threaten valuable food and ornamental crops.
In 2024, the department expanded the quarantine area by one county to 52 counties, although more than half of those counties have relatively small, isolated populations of lanternflies. The quarantine expansion comes after extensive surveys by Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture in concert with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in every Pennsylvania county, with a major emphasis on Erie County, where much of the state’s $1.77 billion wine and grape industry is concentrated.
“The Shapiro Administration is committed to protecting and preserving the tremendous value agriculture brings to our economy and our daily lives,” Redding continued. “Funding research to develop safe, innovative pest control methods, monitoring and treating destructive pests like lanternflies aggressively, and fostering strategic partnerships between government and industry are all critical tools Pennsylvania has invested in to continue to control this destructive pest.”
In his 2025-26 budget, Governor Josh Shapiro has proposed continued funding to combat lanternflies and other invasive pests and pathogens and to support producers whose livelihoods they threaten, including:
- $3 million of a $34 million Rapid Response and Disaster Readiness Fund dedicated to aiding the department’s response to agricultural emergencies.
- The proposed 2025-26 budget continues last year’s funding of $145,000 to support a second lanternfly detection dog, Ruby, to work in western Pennsylvania. Ruby joins Lucky, the nation’s first dog specially trained to detect lanternfly eggs in hard-to-reach areas like shipping pallets used to transport products from quarantined areas.
- An additional $13 million for the nation’s first Ag Innovation Program an investment helping to keep Pennsylvania agriculture successful and at the cutting edge amid rapid market changes, and threats from invasive species that are amplified by climate change. In its first open application period, the program received 159 applications for nearly $70 million worth of innovation projects.
- Critical agriculture research and development funding including $2.187 million in Agriculture Research funds, plus $60.596 million — an increase of $2.886 million for Penn State Agricultural Extension & Research that is crucial for educating farmers and developing novel methods for managing pests and disease. PA Farm Bill Specialty Crop Block Grants, Commodity Marketing & Research boards including Wine and Grapes, and Hardwood Promotion and Research are among many other programs that support producers threatened by lanternflies.
The lanternfly quarantine prohibits moving lanternflies at any stage of life, as well as infested items like firewood, brush, and other debris. Among other measures, it requires those who operate businesses or travel for business in and out of quarantined counties to get a permit. More than 33,300 businesses across the U.S. and Canada have gotten permits for more than 1.42 million employees, demonstrating that they know how to recognize lanternflies and avoid transporting them.
Adult insects die off over the winter after laying tiny rows of eggs, covering them with a putty-colored protective coating. The egg masses, which can be on any outdoor surface, from trees and rocks to equipment and law furniture, each contain 30-50 eggs approximately the size of a pinhead and have survived winters in sustained sub-zero temperatures. Scraping and smashing them is easy and requires no special tools.
Learn how to recognize and report spotted lanternflies, control them on your property, and keep from taking them to new homes when you travel at agriculture.pa.gov/spottedlanternfly.
Note: High quality, public domain photos of spotted lanternflies are available through the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Spotted Lanternfly Flickr album . Graphics for public awareness campaigns can be downloaded from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture's Spotted Lanternfly Flickr album.
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