Mixed feelings over Dutch pears entering Brazil

After difficult negotiations, the Brazilian market officially opened for Dutch pears yesterday. Before the summer the Netherlands and Brazil came to a phytosanitary agreement, with this came a commitment from the Government Gazette of Brazil, and a legal commitment from the Dutch fruit exporters, that nothing would stand in the way of the exportation of pears to Brazil. Market access covers the full assortment of pears, with the 'Conference-pears' expected to be the main variety exported. 

Fruit exporter Kees Oskam from Vleuten, Utrecht, the Netherlands has been working on gaining market access to Brazil for a total of four years now. He is happy with the market opening, but disappointed about the timing, "If the Brazilian market had opened for us in August, we could have exported a lot of pears. From September until now is an interesting time period for export. But now plenty of Argentinian pears will enter the Brazilian market. So for the rest of this season there is not much more for us."

"In addition, there is some more action in the pear market again and we are at a very different price level than last September. At that point we could start from scratch and not much could go wrong. For next season we will have to see," says Kees. "From February through August Brazil gets their pears from neighbouring countries Chile and Argentina, and from September through March they mainly get Rocha-pears from Portugal, and more pears from France, Spain and Italy. On the European market Rocha-pears are 15 cents lower than Conference pears, but in Brazil you must be well skilled to get the same price."

Based on the phytosanitary requirements, only parcels are eligible, which are registered for export to China and meet the relevant requirements. Guarantees should be made with respect to the Cydia pomonella (codling moth), such as bi-weekly monitoring, application pheromone confusion/fall.

Kees Oskam believes that the conditions have been set too high, "The same goes for the export to China. We will therefore start losing to the competition, because countries like Portugal, Spain and Italy don't have to comply with the same standards."