Colombia has carried out its second shipment of fresh citrus to the US since the reopening of the market earlier this year.
The US suspended citrus imports in 2016 following the discovery of plant pests in South America.
The Colombian authorities said the 22.5-tonne consignment of oranges (Salustiana and Valencia), grapefruit and tangerines was sent to Puerto Rico earlier this month.
It follows an earlier shipment in August –the first exports since the US authorised imports of citrus grown in farms that comply with regulations to control pests such as HLB in February.
In compliance with the measures agreed by the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) and USDA-Aphis, the fruit has been subjected to cold treatment in transit.
Colombia first gained access to the US citrus market in 1963, but shipments stalled after 1995 as production fell and domestic consumption increased. In 2015, Colombian officials signalled their interest in resuming shipments to the market.
Colombia’s agriculture minister, Andrés Valencia, said: 'the US is the main destination of several of our agricultural products, currently accounting for 38 per cent of our total agri-exports.
“The good news is that we are diversifying our agri-export offer with products that generate more value and employment, as is the case of citrus, which are increasingly gaining more space in this market.”
In 2017, Colombia exported a total of 28,130 tonnes of citrus to different markets worldwide.
