The US agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack announced on Friday that California citrus growers can resume exports to China after being banned since April 2013.
The announcement follows news in early August that Chinese and US quarantine officials had reached an agreement on protocols to re-open China to Californian citrus exports.
“Resuming trade before the start of the 2014 citrus shipping season is the result of a lot of effort by a number of USDA employees, who worked very closely with their foreign counterparts to resolve China’s concerns,” said Vilsack in a statement released by the USDA. “Their extra effort means California citrus growers can once again ship to this important market.”
China closed off access to California citrus in 2013 after brown rot was found in intercepted shipments. Since then, China's quarantine deparment AQSIQ and its US counterpart, APHIS, have been negotiating to resume trade.
President of California Citrus Mutual, Joel Nelsen, told the Desert Sun that resuming exports to China, the second biggest export market after South Korea, was a step forward.
“We were hoping to get [exports] reopened in November in time for the 2013/14 navel orange season,” Nelsen told the Desert Sun. That didn’t happen, however, and while Hong Kong was still open to exports, mainland China was closed off until earlier this month. “As a result, there were several million packages of fruit that were not exported to China.”
Nelsen told the news site that while the new pest management protocols citrus growers have to undertake will be costly, he sees it as a “reasonable” step in maintaining the quality of Californian exports.
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