Rudy Ruitenberg
EU farm lobby Copa-Cogeca has called on the 28-nation bloc to tighten controls on citrus imports from South Africa to prevent the introduction of the plant disease black spot.
The EU should widen proposed control measures to include all South African citrus, including fruit for processing, Copa-Cogeca secretary-general Pekka Pesonen wrote in a letter to EU health commissioner Tonio Borg.
Imports from zones with black spot disease should be automatically banned the moment six contaminated cargoes were intercepted, Pesonen said.
South Africa is the biggest supplier of citrus fruit to the EU from outside the bloc, shipping e471.5 million (R6.8 billion) of oranges, grapefruits, mandarins and lemons last year, Eurostat data show. The EU intercepted 34 shipments from the country last year that contained black spot disease, the Europhyt database shows.
“The high number of interceptions in 2013 demonstrates that South Africa’s competent authorities are incapable of carrying out effective phytosanitary controls,” Pekonen wrote. “Copa-Cogeca is… concerned that the proposed control system will once again fail to function properly.”
A March proposal by the EU to inspect fruit for the fresh produce market at packaging stations provides a derogation for fruit that is earmarked for processing, which accounts for 10 percent of imports, according to Copa-Cogeca.
Copa-Cogeca “regrets” the checks did not apply for processing fruit, and said the ban on imports on detection of a sixth contaminated batch should apply to imports for processing, as well as the fresh produce market, Pekonen wrote.
The EU imported 433 074 tons of oranges from South Africa last year, with a value of e286m, as well as 104 429 tons of grapefruit, 80 934 tons of mandarins and 25 112 tons of lemons, Eurostat data show.
Spain, the EU’s largest citrus grower, produced 3.68 million tons of oranges last year, as well as 2.02 million tons of mandarins, 767 200 tons of lemons and 62 700 tons of grapefruit, the country’s agriculture ministry estimates.
Black spot spreading into the EU through trade was considered “moderately likely”, increasing to “likely” for imported fruit with leaves, the European Food Safety Authority wrote in a February report.
A call to Justin Chadwick, the chief executive of the Citrus Growers Association of Southern Africa, was not answered. – Bloomberg