Australian mangoes are on the cusp of gaining access to the US market, following a recommendation from the US Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) they be allowed entry.
In a statement last week, APHIS recommended entry under a protocol involving irradiation, as expected by the Australian industry. The proposed protocol also includes fungus management procedures.
“As a condition of entry, the mangoes would have to be produced in accordance with a systems approach employing a combination of mitigation measures for the fungus Cytosphaera mangiferae and would have to be inspected prior to exportation from Australia and found free of this disease,” the statement said.
The proposed protocol is open for comment to the public and industry until 27 December.
The timing could potentially open the market for Australia before the end of the current season, which runs through to around March.
The irradiation treatment recommended by APHIS confirms the predictions of the Australian mango industry.
“Irradiation’s more of a new thing for horticulture, but we’ve been sending fruit to New Zealand and Malaysia for a while now `using irradiation`,” Australian Mango Industry Association chairman Peter Delis told Fruitnet.com in August.
“So it’s not really new to us, and nobody in the industry is uninformed about it.”
Australia will most likely hit the market with airfreighted fruit, which will put the Southern Hemisphere supplier at a cost disadvantage to Latin American competition, but will mean high quality landed fruit.
The country’s large, brightly-coloured signature mango varieties such as Kensington Pride and R2E2 are expected to find favour in the US market.
