The move towards having Authorized (quarantine) Officers (AO’s), rather than Federal Government officers for Tasmanian exporters, is a natural progression, according to Lucy Gregg, Marketing Manager of Reid Fruits. “Quite a few people have been trained already as AO’s, and they can undertake inspections for non-protocol countries already,” she told Fresh Plaza. “In Tasmania though, the biggest markets are protocol markets, such as China, South Korea, Japan, Thailand and Taiwan and which in our case would equate to 80% of our export volume.” Growers have been lobbying the Government to allow Authorised Officers to be utilized for protocol markets for five years since the abolishment of the 30% quarantine fee rebate in 2010.
Comments made by Phil Pyke, of Fruit Growers Tasmania, and Howard Hansen, a fellow cherry grower, were echoed my Ms Gregg, who added that New Zealand has had an in-house inspection system in place for years, and to her knowledge without any incident. “New Zealand has utilized an approved self-inspection or 3rd party inspection system for years. You could make the case that we would do it very thoroughly, especially when there isn’t the time pressure,” she said. “I agree with Howard too that if we were to send fruit overseas, to a market with protocols and phytosanitary requirements, that failed inspection we are the ones who would lose. If we lost market access through poor inspection processes we could potentially lose millions of dollars so it is in our best interests to do it thoroughly and properly.”
While cost is a big factor with Government officer inspections, Ms Gregg believed that time and flexibility were the other reasons why the push for in-house inspectors made sense. “Currently we can access quarantine officers for a period in the morning just prior to export dispatches . If we had our own in-house inspectors we could do undertake inspections over a much wider period of operating hours and on weekends. “There are only a certain number of quarantine inspectors available too, and during peak season accessing them can be difficult. The booking process is cumbersome and laborious and having in-house inspectors would save significant time just in administration,” said Ms Gregg
Government Ministers, including Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Richard Colbeck and Tasmania’s Primary Industries Minister Jeremy Rockliff have said they support the system, but that receiving countries are not likely to approve the current proposals from growers in time for the next harvest. "We see the opportunity to reduce costs for industry through the acceptance of this process. But it also does depend on the receiving countries being prepared to accept the certification of product by those Authorised Officers," Senator Colbeck told the ABC.
For more information
Lucy Gregg, Marketing Manager
Reid Fruits
Phone: +61 62615620
Website: www.reidfruits.com
Read other stories about the system on abc.net.au