Citrus greening

A new television commercial backed by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is debuting in the US this week with the aim of warning people about the threat of pests to California's agricultural industry.

The advert features a young girl skipping through peaches and orchards, with pieces of the fruit rotting as she passes by, before morphing into a swarm of bugs that fly towards the camera.

Using the tagline 'They're here, and they're hungry', the federal government is hoping that the advert will make people think twice about breaking quarantine laws by bringing seemingly harmless fruit and vegetables into the state.

'California is a huge gateway to the rest of the US,' the USDA's Larry Hawkins told local media. 'It's not only that pests can arrive here, but the climate they need to colonise is also here. The assault is never-ending.'

The US$3m project will run through to the end of October, and is not the only pest-awareness campaign this year, with the California Citrus Research Board also set to run a campaign directed at the east Indian community across the western US warning that Asian citrus psyllids are drawn to curry.