Largely as a result of a concerted lobbying campaign by the Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC), Defra has today announced the delay of the partial introduction of new fresh produce import rules.
Mandatory use of Quarantine Release Certificates was due to come in on April 7, but has now been postponed until further notice. The FPC has argued that insufficient information and guidance has been provided by Defra to enable the industry to fully understand how new plant health import procedures will work.
The announcement of a delay was made this morning on the PEACH website, after Nigel Jenney was interviewed on the Radio Four Farming Today programme. In the interview he outlined FPC concerns on behalf of its members that the lack of appropriate guidance could cause harm to the industry and potentially lead to a shortage of fresh produce on UK shelves. Readers can listen to the interview on the Farming Today website.
The FPC also wrote to Lord Rooker, Defra Minister for Sustainable Food and Farming, after receiving no responses from previous correspondence with PHSI and senior Defra staff.
“We explained to Lord Rooker our concerns and requested co-operation from his department which had so far been lacking. Since the Farming Today interview was recorded yesterday, the FPC has been contacted by a senior Defra official inviting me to meet to discuss the problems,” said Jenney. “The FPC hopes that this will provide the opportunity to resolve these difficulties in a timely fashion to the satisfaction of both industry and government.”
The announcement which appeared this morning on the PEACH website states that the delay has been caused by IT problems and is reproduced below:
“This is to inform you that the proposal to start using Quarantine Release Certificates from 07/04/2008 has been postponed.
“All the hardware changes required to provide a stable IT environment for PEACH and our eDomero system have not yet been put in place. We regret this postponement, but we are not prepared to go fully live with this system until we have much more confidence that we will not encounter the sort of IT problems that have dogged the PEACH / eDomero systems in the recent past. As soon as we have a date when we can expect a stable IT environment we will make another announcement informing the trade of when the use of QRC's will start to come into force.
“As previously, the intention will be to have a 4 week trial period before then requiring the use of QRC's to Customs clear goods. (You should be able to start printing your QRC's now - subject to there being no further IT issues - and you may wish to start getting used to producing them and even clearing goods with them.) Thank you for your forbearance.”
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