Food & Beverages

The Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is seeking comments from interested parties by 14 February on a proposal to allow the importation of Chinese sand pears (Pyrus pyrifolia) from mainland China into the United States. U.S. regulations allow the importation of both Ya pears (Pyrus bretschneideri) and fragrant pears (Pyrus sp. nr. communis) from the mainland, but the importation of sand pears is currently prohibited.

As a condition of entry, sand pears from areas in mainland China in which the Oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis) is not known to exist would have to be produced in accordance with a systems approach that would include requirements for registration of places of production and packing houses, sourcing of pest-free propagative material, inspection for quarantine pests at set intervals by the national plant protection organisation of China, bagging of fruit, safeguarding, labelling and importation in commercial consignments. Sand pears from areas in mainland China in which the Oriental fruit fly is known to exist could be imported into the United States if, in addition to these requirements, the places of production and packinghouses have a monitoring system in place for Oriental fruit fly and the pears are treated with cold treatment. All sand pears from mainland China would also be required to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate with an additional declaration stating that all conditions for the importation of the pears have been met and that the consignment of pears has been inspected and found free of quarantine pests.

According to APHIS, the absence of detections of quarantine pests over a prolonged period of time (more than five years for both Ya pears and fragrant pears) demonstrates the efficacy of the mitigation measures in place for the importation of Ya pears and fragrant pears from the mainland. Accordingly, many of the mitigation measures in the systems approach would be modelled on existing measures for the importation of Ya pears or fragrant pears. There would be one significant difference, however. Whereas APHIS currently limits the origin of Ya pears and fragrant pears grown for export to the U.S. to areas within mainland China in which Oriental fruit fly is not known to exist and could not survive (areas north of the 33rd parallel), the agency would authorise the importation of Chinese sand pears grown in any area of mainland China, including areas south of the 33rd parallel. As outlined above, pears grown in areas south of the 33^rd parallel would be subject to additional mitigation measures necessary to address the risk posed by the Oriental fruit fly.