The Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters (Shaffe) held its agm on 15 October 2004 at the Produce Marketing Convention in the US. During the day’s meeting Ronald Bown of the Chilean Exporters Association was elected the association’s new president for a year. Bown replaces outgoing president, Phil Alison of Pip Fruit Growers, New Zealand.
At its meeting the association agreed to publish a position paper to key industry representatives, most notably retailers, to voice its concerns about the increasing cost of compliance with both legislative and retail food safety requirements within key export markets. "It is time exporters respond to the downward pressure on returns to growers and distributors," said Bown. "For years we have been ensuring and demonstrating that only safe produce is placed on the market, yet we are constantly required to prove this in an array of different and duplicated methods, all of which increase our costs."
The association received an update on activities from its SPS-sub group, under the leadership of Justin Chadwick from Citrus Growers Association, South Africa. The group is exploring ways of pooling resources to conduct field trials to generate data to use in setting import tolerances for pesticide residues into Europe "We have previously reaped the benefits of shared resources within Shaffe and are continuing to develop a work plan to once again use this approach. This will allow a co-ordinated response to find proactive solutions to changes in the European Union’s pesticide regime", said Chadwick.
Delegates at the meeting also drafted a position paper destined for the WTO on their response to the Doha Development Round of current WTO trade negotiations. The association advocates the elimination of domestic support, export refunds and other measures that distort free trade.
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