Cape Town - South African citrus exporters face a looming crisis over the European Union's (EU) new cold storage regulations, and the situation is being made worse by load shedding.
The regulations require fruit imports to undergo mandatory cold treatment processes and pre-cooling steps for up to 25 days before consignments are shipped.
In June, the EU’s Standing Committee on Plant, Animal, Food and Feed published new regulations requiring the cold treatment for oranges heading to Europe as a means to address False Codling Moth (FCM) interceptions from southern African orange exports.
The Citrus Growers’ Association of South Africa (CGA) said the regulations were “politically motivated” and, if enforced this month, could result in R654 million of SA citrus currently en route to Europe destroyed on arrival.
The CGA accused Spanish producers of freezing southern African citrus out of the European market.
CGA market access and EU matters special envoy Deon Joubert said the regulations had made extensive changes to the applicable phytosanitary requirements for South African citrus exports. He said the nature of the cold treatment prescribed in the regulations was contrary to scientific evidence, and this made it arbitrary, unjustified and unnecessarily trade restrictive.
“The fact that authorities are trying to enforce these new regulations a mere 23 days after publication, making it impossible for South African growers to comply, highlights how unjustified and discriminatory this legislation is,” Joubert said.
He said local citrus growers exported 800 000 tons of high-quality citrus fruit to the EU annually and that FCM interceptions had been consistently low over the past three years, with only 19 interceptions in 2019, 14 in 2020, and 15 in 2021.
Meanwhile, the CGA said Cape Town and Port Elizabeth cold storage operators had invested in generators to ensure the cold stores were not affected by load shedding.
The CGA said Eskom’s power cuts had forced exporters to run costly generators to keep fruit fresh, and was affecting the ability of farmers to harvest and pack fruit, just as the industry moved into peak harvest season.
The move on cold storage by the EU comes while South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development is in talks with its counterparts in the EU to ask them to reconsider the regulations on the basis that they carry no technical weight.
Department spokesperson Reggie Ngcobo said that although South Africa recognised the sovereignty of the EU and appreciated it had taken measures to protect its plant health and the environment, there were areas of concern about the move.
They included the failure of the regulations to recognise that South Africa had already strengthened its systems approach for integrated pest risk management of FCM.