New Phytosanitary Regulations Allow Higher Imports
of Avocados
Donna
Roberts and Agnes
Perez
Phytosanitary measures restrict
or regulate imported food products to combat the
entry and establishment of foreign pests and diseases.
Import bans are sometimes used to reduce phytosanitary
risks, but such measures can restrict the seasonal
availability of a product or significantly raise
costs for consumers. Advances in scientific risk
assessment methods over the past decade have helped
regulators design less trade-restrictive measures
for some products, such as avocados, that reduce
phytosanitary risks while allowing imports.
USDA initially banned imports
of Mexican avocados in 1914 to prevent entry of
avocado seed weevils into the United States. USDA’s
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
partially lifted this ban in 1993 when it allowed
Mexican avocados to be shipped to Alaska under the
terms of an import protocol that stipulated production
and shipping requirements. Since then, APHIS has
revised the import protocol three times, gradually
lifting geographical and seasonal restrictions.
By 2005, Mexico had year-round market access to
all States except California, Florida, and Hawaii,
and it will gain access to those States in 2007.
Safeguards—such as annual field surveys and
packinghouse requirements—against the entry
of avocado pests remain mandatory. These measures
increase exporter production costs, but enable market
access. Avocado imports from Mexico rose from just
over 1 million pounds in 1993/94 to 296 million
pounds in 2004/05, about half the total U.S. import
volume.
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The key to changes in U.S. import
policy for Mexican avocados has been the adoption
of a systems approach to risk management, consisting
of a number of sequential safeguards designed to
progressively reduce risk to an insignificant level.
If one mitigating measure fails, the other safeguards
are in place to ensure the reduction of pest or
disease risks. The net benefits of these more targeted
approaches to reduce pest and disease risks can
be estimated under alternative scenarios.
The annual net benefits of lifting
the geographical and seasonal restrictions, while
maintaining the other phytosanitary safeguards that
are currently required, were found to total about
$70 million. If these safeguards were removed, the
expected pest-related costs would exceed the savings
in compliance costs under most scenarios, reducing
estimated economic gains. These estimates provide
analytic support for the decision by APHIS to replace
the ban on imported Mexican avocados with a more
targeted systems approach.
This
finding is drawn from . . . |
| Fruit
and Tree Nuts Outlook, USDA, Economic
Research Service.
“Illustration
of the Modeling Framework: Economic Effects
of the U.S. Ban on Avocados from Mexico,”
in A Framework for Analyzing Technical
Trade Barriers in Agricultural Markets,
by Donna Roberts, Timothy E. Josling, and
David Orden, TB-1876, USDA, Economic Research
Service, March 1999. |
|
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