Gustavo Mostajo Ocola says budget cuts have led to a resurgence of the pest that is threatening the country’s international competitiveness
A former minister has warned that the country’s fruit exports are under threat because of an increase in the presence of fruit fly. Gustavo Eduardo Mostajo Ocola, previously minister for agrarian development and irrigation, said a reduction in the budget and operational capacity of plant health authority Senasa is putting at risk decades of technical work and multimillion-dollar investment by the state, Agraria reports.
Over the last three decades, Peru has carried out one of Latin America’s most ambitious phytosanitary projects through Senasa, with co-financing from the Inter-American Development Bank, to control fruit fly.
The result is regions like Tacna, Moquegua, Arequipa and the Palpa and Nazca areas of Ica being declared completely free from the pest. Other regions, including Piura, Lambayeque, Cajamarca, Amazonas, La Libertad, Cusco, and Apurímac, have been categorised as having a low prevalence of fruit fly.
Fruit fly causes premature fruit drop and increases pesticide costs, both of which have a direct economic impact on growers. Moreover, strict border controls on some of Peru’s main export markets, including the US and European Union, force Peruvian exporters to apply costly additional quarantine treatments, such as hydrothermal treatment for mangoes or cold treatment for grapes and citrus. This increases transport costs and cuts the shelf-life of the fruit.
According to Mostajo, records already show a sustained increase in monthly detections of fruit fly and infestation rates in areas previously certified as being free of the pest.
He is calling on the government to guarantee official and biological control of the pest, as well as forcing producers to implement integrated field management and transport operators and citizens to comply with internal movement restrictions.
Mostajo has also urged the state to restore and safeguard Senasa’s budget, consolidating large-scale training programmes for farmers, and restoring the quarantine system by funding urgent contingency plans to bring MTD levels back within regulatory limits.
