U.S. allows imports of two South Korean Unshu oranges - FreshFruitPortal.com

U.S. allows imports of two South Korean Unshu oranges

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U.S. allows imports of two South Korean Unshu oranges

The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has decided to allow the importation of commercial consignments of two Unshu orange hybrids from South Korea. Unshu-oranges-sq-Tsukuba-Jin

The organization is also making one minor change to the existing regulations by adding an explicit statement that only commercial consignments of Unshu oranges will be eligible for importation into the continental U.S.

Under previous regulations, only one species of Unshu orange (known as Citrus reticulata) was eligible for import into the U.S. from the Asian country, but the new rule will add two Unshu sweet and mandarin orange hybrids to the list.

On July 29 APHIS published a proposal to allow the importation of the two hybrids, and solicited comments until the end of September.

"We received four comments by that date," the APHIS statement read.

"They were from a producers' association, the National Plant Board, a State government, and an individual. Two of the commenters supported the proposed rule, and the other two expressed concerns."

"One commenter, representing a State government, stated that the Unshu hybrids should only be allowed into citrus-producing States after the proposed mitigation measures have been shown to be effective in non-citrus-producing States in preventing the introduction of Elsinoe australis, the fungus that is the causal agent of sweet orange scab."

APHIS said it did not agree with this comment, given the results of the risk assessment it performed in July 2014.

Another commenter stated that although the proposed rule would only allow for the importation of the Unshu hybrids into the continental U.S., there was no enforcement of regulations that prevent the fruit from subsequently being shipped from the continental U.S. to Hawaii.

In this case, APHIS said there was 'an explicit prohibition on the importation of the Unshu hybrids into Hawaii, as well as into American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.'

The new ruling is effective immediately, which APHIS said was 'necessary to provide relief to those persons who are adversely affected by restrictions on the importation of Unshu orange hybrids that we no longer find warranted.'

Photo: Tsukuba-Jin, via Flickr Creative Commons

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