Bangladesh: New compliance rules for fruit, veg exports
The registration will be made mandatory in the near future for increased monitoring, according to Anwar Faruque, director general of the agriculture ministry's seed wing.
The move comes in the face of the European Union's repeated rejections of fruit and vegetable consignments from Bangladesh for presence of pest in the shipped fresh produce and absence of phyto-sanitary or plant health certificates.
The use of fake phyto-sanitary certificates and doctoring of such documents by a section of errant exporters were the other reasons behind the EU's rejections.
Between January and July this year, the EU refused entry to 43 consignments from Bangladesh, which is already 67 percent of the total rejection notifications the country had faced in 2014.
Registrations with the Plant Protection Wing have already started and 34 firms have signed up so far, according to its Deputy Director Md Anwar Hossain Khan.
As per the conditions of registration, exporters will have to grow pest- and disease-free fruits, vegetables and betel leaves through contract farming. Exporters will also have to get certificates from the upazila agriculture officers that the produce collected from the contract growers is free from pest.
The plant health certificates will be issued based on physical inspections by officials of plant quarantine stations.
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