04/29/05 Taiwan reopened to apples, Part one

After months of effort by U.S. government and fruit industry groups like the Northwest Horticultural Council, Taiwan announced Tuesday that it would reopen its market to U.S. apples the following day. WILLETT: We assumed that the market opening could occur any day and so it wasn't a surprise to us that we basically got twelve hours notice before the market reopened or less. And Mike Willett of the Hort Council says the reopening of Taiwan comes based on minor changes to inspections of apples for coddling moth, and coddling moth larvae. WILLETT: For the fruit that's in storage now, from the 2004 crop, the primary requirement was just that Taiwan have more assurance that the people doing an analysis of the fruit in the packing house were better trained to recognize coddling moth and coddling moth damage. And that has meant extensive training by U.S. federal and state officials over the last month for packing house employees. But what about the 2005 crop? Willett says one big change is planned for the work plan between the U.S. and Taiwan. WILLETT: There will be a system in place to evaluate the risk of coddling moth being present in any given growers fruit before it arrives at the packing facility. That's a new procedure, and exactly what it's going to be is undefined at this moment, but there's groups all over the west coast working on this. In our next program, the effort to educate to prevent another closure.