SA citrus industry reacts strongly to EU black spot protocols

The South African Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) has issued a statement accusing the EU of being unwilling to acknowledge this country’s successes in minimising the risk of citrus black spot (CBS) entering the EU.

The statement followed a recent meeting held at the EU headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, between representatives of the DirectorateGeneral for Health and Food Safety in the EU, South Africa’s Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and a delegation of local citrus growers.

Jan-Louis Pretorius, director of CGA, said that at this meeting the EU “showed no interest in reviewing its position on CBS as a quarantine pest, demanding full compliance and refusing to consider any reasonable requests for relaxation of the excessive and unsustainable protocols governing the pest”.

Pretorius added that this was despite “only two” consignments of the over 800 000t of citrus exported to the EU in 2018 being intercepted due to symptoms of CBS.

“None of these tested as viable [CBS] fungi. South Africa has shown enormous capacity to mitigate the risk of CBS over the past four years, even though it does not agree with the EU that CBS poses any threat. In fact, South Africa is aligned with the general international scientific view that citrus fruit without leaves is not a pathway for the spread of CBS,” he said.

Farmer’s Weekly reported last year that the local citrus industry had voluntarily decided to temporarily halt citrus exports to the EU while the industry ramped up its CBS controls.

In its latest statement, CGA cited a study by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy, which found that the South African citrus industry’s opportunity cost associated with CBS protocols and proactive measures against this plant pathogen amounted to a “staggering R1,86 billion, which is clearly not sustainable”.

Earlier this year, Dr Vaughan Hattingh, CEO of Citrus Research International, said South Africa’s annual fresh citrus exports were valued at approximately R18 billion.

“Furthermore, the CBS protocols also require intensive chemical spraying programmes, which is in conflict with a global move towards lower residue production.” – Lloyd Phillips