Originally Posted by
TWA884
To find out if a plant product is permitted, go to the following data base and choose the country or region of origin from the drop down menu at the top left.
And from the
link above:
As the name implies, the Fruits and Vegetables Import Requirements database only covers fruits and vegetables, not seeds, grains, cut flowers, lumber, Christmas trees, live plants, etc etc.
Other manuals are here:
https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/our...tronic-manuals
Lentils for eating would be covered in the Seeds not for Planting manual. In non-commercial quantities, they're subject to inspection (like everything else) but not otherwise restricted. If the bag was nothing but lentils and wasn't infested with insects, s/he should've been able to keep them. (see p. 3-34)
In order to get fined, you have to fail to declare a prohibited item--both conditions are necessary; you can never get an agriculture fine for an item that's not prohibited (even if you deliberately conceal it and intentionally fail to declare it), nor can you get fined for anything declared (even if it's prohibited, heavily infested, etc.). You can in theory be penalized under Customs regulations for failing to declare any item, but for low-value items that are part of your $800 personal exemption--like, say, a bag of lentils--the end result is a $0 penalty anyway. As Often1 points out, it really only matters for GE members who can lose GE for failing to declare anything at all.