Dive Brief:
- USDA announced that it will now allow imports of apples from China, effective at the end of May.
- This announcement comes just a few months after China announced it would expand its apple imports from the U.S. from just two types, red delicious and golden delicious, to all varieties.
- For apples coming from regions in China known to be affected by the Oriental fruit fly, they will have to undergo fumigation and refrigeration in addition to the bagging, safeguarding, and labeling all other Chinese apples will undergo.
Dive Insight:
A majority of these apples will be exported to the West Coast, particularly California, and will mainly be sold in Asian ethnic supermarkets in Asian communities. Most apples imported from China are fujis, so if any U.S. farmers were to be affected, that might only include California and Washington fuji apple farmers.
Other than that, this new rule allowing Chinese apple imports shouldn't do much in the way of impacting the U.S. apple industry. According to FreshFruitPortal.com, the USDA said, "Based on historic data of China’s apple production, consumption, export volumes, and prices, we expect no more than 10,000 MT of fresh apples will be imported from China into the continental United States annually, which represents less than 0.44 percent of the U.S. domestic fresh apple supply and less than 5 percent of U.S. imports in 2012."