Taiwan Bags Apple Import Restrictions Decision Preserves Largest Market For State Growers
Taiwan, one of the biggest buyers of Washington apples, has dropped plans to impose new restrictions that could have made the state’s 1995 harvest ineligible for export to the Asian nation.
But Taiwan is expected to press next year for greater use of pesticides and monitoring systems to ensure that Washington apples do not carry codling moth, industry officials said Thursday.
“To Taiwan’s credit, when they found out this would cause tremendous problems for us, they held off imposing the rules,” said Chris Schlect, president of the Northwest Horticulture Council. “We’ll be working with the Taiwanese to make new rules (next year) as unobtrusive as possible.”
Schlect said a Taiwanese inspection team will visit California and Washington orchards during September harvest. Additional talks also are planned.
Taiwan’s decision reverses an announcement in May that it would require U.S. growers to use more aggressive pesticide applications and monitoring systems to control codling moth. It also wanted apples destined for Taiwan to be packed and stored separately from all other fruit.
Washington apple industry officials said the new restrictions were unjustified. Taiwan has accepted apple exports from the state with no problems for the past 20 years and Washington inspects its apples for plum curculio, apple maggot and codling moth.
Taiwan dropped the restrictions, which were scheduled to go into effect next month, after several days of negotiation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The decision is a relief to Washington growers, who have sold 4 percent of their 1994 crop to Taiwan. Taiwan thus far this season has bought 3.7 million 42-pound boxes of Washington apples, making it the largest export customer to date.
“Following the proposed export restrictions could have knocked us out of that market,” Washington Apple Commission President Steve Lutz said. “We have close to $100 million in sales tied to Taiwan.”
, DataTimes