Pretoria – The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development has confirmed that it has negotiated a settlement that will see clearing of South African citrus containers stuck in ports of entry in the EU.
“To date we have managed to clear more 300 of the 509 containers and we are processing clearance of the remaining containers,” said Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development spokesperson, Reggie Ngcobo.
The EU introduced new measures to regulate risk associated with the false codling moth on citrus fruit.
The new measures include amended additional phytosanitary declarations for grapefruit and soft citrus and revised cold treatment regime for oranges.
Ngcobo said the measures were published on June 21 and came into effect by June 24.
“This implied that consignments arriving in Europe from 14 July onwards needed to comply with the new measures. Taking the shortest sailing time to the EU, it meant that consignments that left South Africa on 24 June 2022, three days from the publication should have been certified on the new measures,” Ngcobo said.
He said South Africa did explain to the European Commission in a meeting and through written communication that the date was “unreasonable”.
At the time of the publication of the new measures, there were consignments that were certified and had already left for EU as well as some that were in the process of being exported.
“The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development assertions were that changing the inspection and certification system within three days was unrealistic. The reasonable date relating to compliance with new measures would have been for consignments leaving SA on 9 July 2022, considering required adjustments of systems and communication to the different regulatory sites, which required at least three weeks from publication,” said Ngcobo.
However, the European Commission insisted on the July 14 as an implementation date.
As anticipated, the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development started receiving queries from exporters after the implementation date regarding rejection of consignments in the EU ports.
The EU authorities needed phytosanitary certificates compliant to the new false codling moth measures.
The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development segmented the cases into just documentation regarding grapefruit and soft citrus and cold treatment compliance on oranges.
“The impasse was subsequently addressed through replacing phytosanitary certificates with the correct additional declarations starting from 22 July 2022.
The orange cases were still an issue until the industry, in a meeting on July 25 presented to the Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development possible equivalence measures regarding treatment applied on these consignments under South Africa’s systems approach for false codling moth,” Ngcobo said.
The department committed to negotiate with the EU through the relevant National Plant Protection Organisations that they should consider the equivalent measures.
Oranges from South Africa, the world’s second-largest exporter of fresh citrus fruits after Spain, had been blocked from ports in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
Over 2 000 containers, at an estimated valued at R500 million were affected by this blockage.
“So far, the department, with information being submitted by industry is re-certifying orange consignments blocked in the Netherlands and Italian ports and we are receiving confirmation that the containers are being cleared,” Ngcobo said.
The department held the meeting with the European Commission on August 5, on the handling of the non-compliant consignment at the ports of the EU and agreed on the interim measures, namely that the EU acceded to South Africa’s application to complete the cooling period in the EU.
“The interim measures provide that the consignments be treated at the cold treatment facilities in the EU and the department to notify other EU member states,” Ngcobo said.
IOL