The EU has long threatened to ban SA citrus if imports infected with the fungal disease, citrus black spot (CBS), are found. This season, about 35 CBS interceptions were made. The EU has set a limit of five interceptions. Pieter Nortjé, chairperson of the Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA), said a ban would be the harshest possible measure the EU could take.
“If instituted, it will serve until the end of the year, but will clear the way to be reinstated much earlier next season, with devastating results. This year, we already had to reroute a lot of fruit to other markets at huge costs and losses to producers,” he said. It was not easy to replace the EU market. “The EU receives 45% of the SA export crop, which is about 50 million 15kg cartons of citrus. All other markets are either fully-utilised or oversupplied.”
Moving only 5% of these EU volumes to other markets would destabilise the market and result in world citrus prices crashing, said Nortjé. He added that new markets had been found, but trade agreements with markets such as India and China had not been finalised fast enough, and the industry was facing a doomsday scenario.
Although industry experts and the CGA did not believe that CBS could be spread to EU orchards through contaminated exports, the EU was concerned, he said. Adding fuel to the fire was the sensitive stage of bilateral trade negotiations between the EU and SA. Asked whether the ban was a result of SA cancelling other trade agreements with the EU, Nortjé said he could only speculate.
“The government’s role is imperative. As an industry, we delivered on job creation, development of rural areas, transformation, forex earnings and taxes, but we will not survive a season without the EU market, and our R8 billion industry will be wiped out.”
