California table grape industry asks to desist from approving the System Approach for Chile

In a statement received this November 16, the president of the California Table Grape Commission, Kathleen Nave, responded to the pressures that the Chilean table grape industry has been exerting, supported by the Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela and importers in the US to approve the System Approach that would allow table grapes exported from the Atacama, Coquimbo and Valparaíso regions to be exported without methyl bromide fumigation. Kathleen Nave noted that the California industry is encouraging USDA Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to permanently abandon approval of this "risky proposal." “The Chilean proposal abandons an empirically successful treatment regimen in favor of an ill-defined System Approach, through which many invasive pests could travel. The change would introduce a significant risk of potentially devastating infestations in wine, raisin and table grape crops across the country,” Nave said. In the statement Nave assures that "Chile has perfectly ...