A coalition of fresh fruit and vegetable organizations from California, Florida, Georgia, Michigan and Texas on June 2 asked U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for a managed approach to import volumes. Their letter to Greer sought that managed approach “particularly during the domestic marketing seasons when the timing of foreign competition is itself the injury.”
Citrus-specific associations signing the letter were California Citrus Mutual, California Citrus Quality Council, Florida Citrus Mutual and Texas Citrus Mutual.
“As your office continues to push for rebalanced trade relationships that safeguard U.S.-based production, we urge you to ensure that any framework governing imports of fresh fruits and vegetables include effective seasonal tariff rate quota or import curbs of equivalent effect to prevent domestic growers from suffering market displacement during their seasonal marketing periods,” the coalition wrote.
They pointed out that U.S. fresh fruit and vegetable producers operate under some of the highest labor, environmental, food safety and regulatory standards in the world. On the other hand, they stated, growers in the southern hemisphere frequently operate with significantly lower labor costs and less burdensome regulatory regimes. That enables them “to ship product into the U.S. market at prices that undercut domestic production precisely when American growers need the market most … A grower who cannot move product at a viable price during a narrow harvest window does not get a second opportunity that season, and the cumulative effect of year after year of price suppression is permanent acreage loss and reduced domestic supply capacity that cannot be quickly rebuilt.”
The letter cited a specific example from the citrus industry: “In the California lemon industry … import volumes from Argentina reached 94,000 metric tons at their peak, more than five times the volume USDA originally projected when market access was authorized, and average unit values fell from $1.39 per kilogram in 2019 to between $0.79 and $0.85 per kilogram in recent years. With a U.S.-Argentina trade agreement now finalized, California lemon producers anticipate a return to overwhelming shipment volumes during the April through October window when Argentine lemons are present in the U.S. market and U.S. producers have no meaningful period of relief.”
The groups stated that they believe a Section 301 investigation into unfair acts, policies and practices affecting fresh fruit and vegetable trade “can prevent injurious market overlaps while preserving orderly and balanced trade flows.”
See the full letter here.
Source: Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association
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