The Regional Fruit Producers Agricultural Union from the State of Chihuahua (UNIFRUT) sued the producers and exporters of apples in the United States for dumping because, this year, they introduced their apple below the cost of production in detriment of the growers in Chihuahua and Mexico.
Ricardo Noe Marquez Portillo, president of UNIFRUT, said the lawsuit had been delivered to the Ministry of Economy of the federal government so that it could be settled in the relevant international instances and to prevent this year's expected 18 million box harvest from not being able to find a market, as happened with the harvest in 2013.
He explained that the growers expected to harvest 360 million tons of apples this year, which would generate about one million jobs.
UNIFRUT worked with the SAI Law & Economics law firm to create the file that demonstrates the unfair practices and sales below cost that the apple producers from the United States carry out in Mexico.
The prices of the national fruit tumbled more than 80 percent, to the point were producers weren't able to cover costs, because of the cheap and poor quality apple that was introduced and flooded the domestic market.
The representative of the apple producers from Chihuahua stated that the average cost per kilogram of fruit produced that the sector handles is of 2.50 to 3 pesos.
He reported that there is an average of 33,000 hectares of apple in the state, 70 percent of which has irrigation infrastructure, via sprinklers, micro sprinklers and drip; it is the most modernized agricultural sector.
He added that about 50-60 percent of the orchards in Chihuahua have hail meshes, which allows for increased performance.
The orchards yield about 20 tons per hectare, although some people get between 50 and 80 tons, as they are operating them under a high-density system.
Marquez Portillo also said that, even though they would only know for certain the apple production volume once the harvest period was over, they could anticipate that the entity will retain 70 to 75 percent of the national share.
The producer said that they expected the anti-dumping lawsuit would make the federal government take several steps to have greater control of imports of apple and to take care of the Mexican fruit-growing sector.
To that end, he said, they were seeking to consolidate agreements with various agencies that would provide greater certainty for apple imports to Mexico.
Marquez Portillo enumerated a series of eight points to reach that goal. Among them, granting UNIFRUT access to the copies of apple import declarations, so they can review them, and enabling Union supervisors to enter the shipments' tax areas.
They also asked to be provided with a monthly report of rejected shipments and the reasons why they were rejected; as well as having a phytosanitary inspection point for the import of apples in the authorized customs.
Furthermore, UNIFRUT wants to be informed of the inspecting procedure on the shipments on the American side, so that they can't be replaced in course, and the standardization of the amount and type of permitted chemicals.
Finally, Marquez Portillo stressed that they must be involved in the audits that the American authority makes on the fruit to measure the risk from pests and substances and to be able to maintain a monitoring scheme on the imported fruit.
Source: eldiariomx