Effort to regain trust in industry
New phyto measures for Philippine banana export
The road map plan comes after a shipment of about 2,700 boxes to China was recently intercepted after being found to have pesticide residue levels higher than standard.
Agriculture Undersecretary Emerson U. Palad, in a news conference last week, said that even before the drafting of the road map, the Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) will look into the incident to check whether protocols were violated.
The four actions to be undertaken by the agriculture department together with the banana stakeholders as agreed upon during the forum are (1) an audit team will inspect the two farms based in Davao and Bukidnon where the rejected “substandard” bananas reportedly came from starting this Monday, April 4, (2) a technical team headed by the DA-Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) will visit China for a Government-to-Government (G2G) transaction.
“The audit team will start the audit on Monday (April 4),” Mr. Palad said.
China has a 0.1 part per million (PPM) maximum residue level (MRL) of chemicals in fresh export goods.
Other countries like Japan and South Korea impose a higher maximum residue level of three PPM.
Unlike other countries with more stringent standards, China also does not require exporters to submit a certificate of analysis, a document that contains the specific level of chemicals sprayed on the produce.
Source: B World Online