Mexico: Colima Company, sole papaya exporter to the U.S.

There is no progress on the issue of papaya exports at the U.S. border, pointed out the national leader of papaya exporters, Nazario Rodriguez Guerra, after the U.S stopped all Mexican papaya imports due to a possible salmonella contamination. However, he said a company from Colima is so far the only one that has been able to send papaya to the United States. "There has been very little progress, the border remains closed, the only company that can enter papayas freely into the United States is Colima, it is called Red-Star, it complied with everything that was
asked from the FDA in the United States, the others are still going on, there are two or three more exporters, but they have to go through a specific test before each shipment," he said.

However, there is good news, more Colima producers are in the process of getting their shipments safe entry to the neighboring country, "these are Chulavista and Carabeo, they are just about to get together all the documents necessary and are trying to ask the FDA to be accepted or removed from the alert," he said this could be, for the next year.

For Nazario Rodriguez, the restriction imposed by the U.S. on the Mexican papaya has put a spin on export quality processes, that will benefit the papaya production chain in the country and will be reflected in a higher quality competition.

"This will be seen in the long term, because it will ensure that everyone who is exporting to the United States does so in the right way, we are not at risk, we as producers agree that we must have regulations so that anyone that wants to export has certifications of good practices, for manufacturing and agriculture," he said.

When asked how much the restriction to the U.S has affected them, Rodriguez Guerra considered that the effects have not been as damaging as the ones left by Hurricane Jova.

"What happened when exporting stopped was that papaya cultivation stopped, what I'm saying is that from August 24th up to now crops have reduced, and hit us because the domestic price was lowered rather considerably, it is difficult to talk about numbers, but I can say that the hurricane affected Colima more than the
restrictions," he said.

Source: InfoRural