China banned California products in April 2013 after brown rot was found in its shipments. The resumption of California citrus exports to China is still on hold after a meeting between Chinese and American officials. U.S. officials hoped the meeting would finalize a proposed agreement allowing California citrus back into China. Unfortunately, Nelsen said, there’s still work to be done. “They were positive about they saw, they said the right things, but it didn’t conclude as we had hoped.
We had hoped to have a signed agreement.” One sticking point, Nelsen said, was a disagreement over the level of standardization growers and packers need to observe to prevent brown rot. The Chinese are more used to a regimented approach, Nelsen said. “They wanted more specific language for protocols.” USDA and California officials tried to convince the Chinese official that that wasn’t always possible, what worked for one grower or packer, Nelsen said, didn’t necessarily work for others. The Chinese officials said they would relay that information to their government and give a response soon, Nelsen said.
No comments:
Post a Comment