The Citrus Growers Association of South Africa (CGA) has made a clarion call to the South African government to ensure oranges will be exported to the European Union this year.
GCA CEO Justin Chadwick said yesterday in a statement that they have written to Minister of Trade, Industry and Competition (Dtic) Ebrahim Patel, requesting that he urgently calls for the establishment of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel to adjudicate on the new False Codling Moth (FCM) regime governing the importation of South African oranges to the region.
“If the issue is not resolved before the 2023 export season kicks off, growers could face hundreds of millions in losses putting the future sustainability of the entire industry at risk,” Chadwick said.
South Africa’s export season of oranges starts in May.
South African production was forecast to increase by 3 percent to 1.7 million tons as a result of favourable weather and a slightly lsrger area harvested. Consumption and exports – at a record high for the third year in a row – were estimated to grow with the greater available supplies.
South Africa exports oranges to more than 100 countries around the world, but the EU was expected to remain the largest export market.
Chadwick said their call to Patel followed the impasse between the South African government and the EU after the Dtic lodged a dispute at the WTO in July last year, with consultations that have taken place failing to yield any progress.
CGA said that according to a recent study conducted by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP), it estimated that, should EU authorities continue to enforce the new regulation, additional costs and loss of income would amount to more than R500 million this year, while an investment in cold storage technology and capacity of nearly R1.4 billion would be required to enable full compliance.
The organisation said this posed a major threat to the future sustainability and profitability of the industry that sustains more than 140 000 jobs and brought in R30 billion in export revenue annually.
Despite the South African government having presented clear evidence during the consultation process that the country’s existing and stringent FCM risk management system already ensured that 99.9% of oranges entering the EU were pest free (with only 2 FCM interceptions detected in the more than 350 000 tons of oranges shipped to the region in 2022), CGA said there had been no progress to reaching mutually agreed concessions on the new regulations.
Chadwick said they understood the matter was also raised during last week’s high-level engagements between senior EU and South African government officials, with no positive outcome.
“It is, therefore clear that political intervention at a Ministerial level is required, in order to ensure the major threat that the new regulations pose to the upcoming 2023 citrus season, is resolved as a matter of priority,” said Chadwick.
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