The Chilean fruit industry has reacted with surprise to the rejection last week of 15 containers of fruit by Mexican authorities.
According to the Santiago Times, the rejection of the cargo of table grapes, peaches, and apricots has “created alarm and indignation within Chile’s US$2.3 billion fresh fruit industry”.
Mexican authorities claim the containers of fruit were infected by brevipalpus chilensis, which is also known as the “false red spider”. The Santiago Times reports: “A Chilean health team sent to Mexico last week insisted that only dead eggs were found in the containers, killed by regular application of methyl bromide. Fruit protocols between Mexico and Chile allow embargo of fruit shipments only when live vermin or eggs are detected in shipments. But Mexican authorities claimed the vectors had been discovered alive.”
Chile’s leading food safety authority, Francisco Bahamonde, head of the Agricultural and Cattle Service (SAG), flew to Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon to dispute the rejection. And Ronald Bown, president of Chile Fresh Fruit Exporters Association, is quoted as alleging a “lack of seriousness” on the part of Mexican authorities. “We are accustomed to occasional rejections,” said Bown, “But never anything of this magnitude. This situation has resulted in more a US$1 million in losses and for all practical purposes implies the suspension of fruit exports to this important market.”
Chile sends around five per cent of its overall fresh fruit export basket to Mexico. Bahamonde will meet today, Wednesday, with his Mexican counterpart “in an effort to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible”, said the newspaper.
