Japanese ban on papaya, mango is hurting RP

The country lost close to $85 million in exports last month and is likely to lose more with Japan’s continued ban on the entry of solo papaya and mango from Davao.

Agricultural Attaché to Japan Joseph Sison said that since the Japan Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) imposed the ban last Oct. 22, Davao mango and solo papaya exporters have been unable to resume shipments of these products to the multi-million-dollar Japanese market. Exports of these products prior to the ban averaged about 100 metric tons (MT) a month.

The MAFF prohibited the entry of these fruits after it discovered that portions of a shipment of 35,150 kilos of solo papayas by Dole Tropifresh Philippines were infested with fruit flies. The shipment was seized at the Kawasaki Port.

Another shipment from the same company was seized at the Kobe port when findings showed the same level of infestation as in the Kawasaki shipment.

Since the mango shipment was with the same solo papaya cargo, the MAFF also banned the entry of Davao mangoes.

As a result, the MAFF is now casting doubts on the effectivity of vapor heat treatment (VHT) as a means to eliminate fruit fly infestation.

Sison said the MAFF is sending a technical team to Davao to look into earlier reports that a breakdown in one of three VHT machines used by Dole Tropifresh failed to detect the presence of fruit flies.

"Until such time that the MAFF is satisfied with the results of its own findings, the ban will continue to stay," Sison said. He added that the MAFF already said that it will monitor VHT of solo papayas and mangoes for 90 days first before it decides to allow resumption of exports to Japan.

Earlier, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) were asked by the MAFF to submit an incident report on the matter. The MAFF also requested a detailed summary on the measures and procedures the DA/BPI intends to institute at the Davao VHT plant to ensure that such insect infestation does not occur in the future.

Sison warned that doubts on the effectiveness of the VHT could pose troubles for the Philippines, especially in its bid to penetrate other markets such as Europe, the US and Australia. VHT has long been used by fruit exporters as a means to fumigate and weed out fruit flies.

Australia, for one, is proposing another method, methyl bromide to fumigate Philippine bananas before these are allowed entry in their domestic market.

Also, the Japanese ruling coalition has just passed into law a proposal amending Japan’s Food Sanitation Law. The law calls for a total country ban on shipments found to exceed the acceptable levels of pesticide residue.

The approval of the proposed amendment gives Japanese government inspectors the authority to ban imports of a specific commodity from a specific country totally if even just a single shipment of that product is found to contain excessive pesticide chemical residues.

Earlier, Japan banned okra exports from the Philippines after one shipment from Tarlac was determined to be exceeding the maximum tolerable level of pesticide residue.