With nearly a third of the current season completed, the US Washington state apple industry has yet to ship a single ocean container of fruit to the Chinese mainland.
A major market for Red Delicious, China has refused to issue import permits since the 2012/13 season began last September, citing concerns over decayed fruit upon arrival – something that the Washington industry contends is no longer a problem.
“There were some decay issues in some apple shipments two seasons ago, but these have long since been addressed through implementation of new post-harvest protocols,” Dr Michael Willett of the Northwest Horticultural Council told Fruitnet. “The last detection reported was with fruit from the 2010/11 season.”
The Washington apple industry had been hopeful that a visit by a delegation of Chinese plant-quarantine officials last December would lead to a lifting of the embargo and allow apple exports from Washington to continue in time to supply the important Lunar New Year holiday period. No such luck.
“The Chinese delegation arrived in mid-December and spent a week touring our facilities and orchards,” said Jim Archer of the Northwest Fruit Exporters. “However, the outcome was not what we’d hoped for.”
Archer said that the delegation’s inspection resulted in some “recommendations and proposals” sent to the USDA’s Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) for review, but no issuance of import permits.
“Some of their proposals are simply not feasible, while others are totally unnecessary,” said Archer.
According to Archer, China PPQ proposed that Washington apple exporters hold packed fruit for a 20-day “incubation period” before shipment to determine if any contamination was present.
“This is logistically impractical as the industry doesn’t have the storage capacity to stage that much fruit for that long,” said Archer. “Another recommendation made was for removal of all leaves from orchard floors.?Archer said that while the Washington apple industry remains hopeful that the trade impasse will soon be resolved soon, it is not counting on it.
“It’s likely the industry will make some sort of a counter-proposal as we really can’t sign off on what they’ve presented us just for expediency sake,” said Archer. “We’ll have to wait and see, however.
