Background

The Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has issued a final rule authorizing the importation of commercial consignments of fresh avocado fruit from continental Ecuador into the continental U.S., effective May 26. These shipments will be subject to a wide range of phytosanitary measures, including the following.

- Avocados must be grown in sites of production registered with the national plant protection organization of Ecuador, which must visit and inspect such sites monthly starting at least two months before harvest and continuing until the end of the shipping season.

- The NPPO must register packinghouses that intend to export avocados to the U.S. and inspect and monitor their operations.

- The NPPO must review and maintain all forms and documents related to export program activities in sites of production and packinghouses for at least one year and, if requested, provide them to APHIS for review.

- If one or more Stenoma catenifer are detected at a production site it will be prohibited from exporting avocados to the continental U.S. until APHIS and the NPPO jointly agree that the risk has been mitigated.

- Avocados presented for inspection at the U.S. port of entry must be identified in the shipping documents accompanying each lot to specify the production site where they were produced and the packing shed where they were processed.

- Each consignment of avocados must be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate issued by the NPPO and an additional declaration stating that the avocados were produced in compliance with the requirements of the systems approach.

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