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Indian Fruit Banned in EU
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Flies are pesky things buzzing around that leave you infuriated and frustrated as you try to swat them; but nine times out of ten you miss the things. Today, it’s flies that are at the center of a row that may be far more than just economic and may damage relations diplomatically-speaking between India and the EU.
In 2013 a consignment of mangos was discovered to be infested with fruit flies. As a consequence, the EUdecided that they would impose a ban on the importing of Alphonso mangos, egg plants, bitter gourd, snake gourd and taro, until India complied with EU standards and regulations. The ban came into force this week and will be reviewed during the year. But, it may last until December 2015.
But, while the ban will have very little impact on India as a whole (although it will most certainly affect individual agricultural workers, albeit do little to the Indian economy), it will damage relations between the EU and India.
• Exotic fruits are imported in large quantities by the EU.
• The UK alone imports fruit to the value of $10.64 million (£6.3 million) every year.
• But, as a percentage of the Indian economy fruit exports are just 0.2% of all exports.
• That’s a value of $2.5 billion.
• Mangos make up 5% of all fruit exports to the EU.
So, it’s hardly anything in economic terms. Although that ‘anything’ has an important role to play in the Indian economy and even if it’s not worth significant amounts to affect the Indian economy adversely, it will have an effect on EU-Indian relations. Trade friction will be increased between both parties and that is not good news.
• Europe is India’s largest export market today.
• Indian exports to the EU amount to €38 billion ($52.68 billion).
• 7.5% of all exports to the EU from India are agricultural-related products.
India’s Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma called the decision by the EU as “unfair” and one that would “potentially jeopardize” agricultural trade between India and the EU.
He added that “it is surprising that the EU Commission has chosen to take this unilateral action without any meaningful official consultation”. What has riled the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister is the fact that there was no consultation, that India had already promised to implement new reforms on standards that were decided upon on April 1st and that the number of fruit contaminated by fruit flies was very small. About 6% of fruit imported in 2013 from India to the EU were found to contain fruit flies. Sharma believes that India had done everything to ensure that EU-health standards were going to be met.
Today, all fruit exported to the EU goes through the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), which inspects consignment with plant quarantine personnel supervising the process. Sharma stated: “APEDA has, in fact, recently introduced regulations especially for EU-bound consignments, which mandate specific compliance on SPS standards as required by the host country. Therefore, the unprecedented action by EU is even more surprising at this juncture”.
It seems therefore that the EU has taken a decision, despite the fact that the Indian Minister has confirmed that exports only take place to the EU if and when they are in compliance with EU standards and requirements.
Sharma suggested that the ban would damage relations between the two sides: “You will appreciate that such measures coming at a time which is the peak season for such agricultural produce would not inspire confidence amongst our agricultural community for a long-term engagement”. He went on to say : "I must mention that the ongoing negotiations for an India-EU Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement are based on the premise of strong trust and understanding for a more liberal trade regime on both sides”.
A free-trade agreement was first put on the table between the EU and India in 2006. Negotiations began in June 2007 and are still on-going. The EU is providing India with trade-related technical assistance as part of the program.
• The value of EU trade with India has grown substantially from €28.6 billion in 2003 to €79.9 billion in 2011.
• At the same time EU investment in India has also considerably increased: €759million in 2003 to €3 billionin 2010.
• Trade in commercial services has seen the figure multiply by three: €5.2billion in 2002 to €17.9 billion in2010.
India still imposes many tariff and non-tariff barriers on the EU, thus causing hindrance to trade. There are also a number of quantitative restrictions that India imposes as well as import licensing, testing and certification. Customs procedures are also long and administratively time-consuming.
Is this simply a way of telling the Indians to lighten up on their restrictions, without actually causing too much damage to their
Originally posted: Indian Fruit Banned in EU
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I wish I was in India eating the Alphonso mango. Its to die for. Delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!
If this was about flies you could solve the problem with a fan and some fly paper. but this isn't about flies is it.
Flypaper no longer allowed in US. Haven't seen any for decades.
google: fruit flies + australia + new zealand. and you'll see that it is about fruit flies
Punishmnet for removing gold import restrictions. They know it is coming.
ouch!
Cinnamon is also on the list.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/eu/10538172/Traditional...
So glad, this export business is actually a drain on the local (producing) population and only the exporters are reaping the benefits. The common man in India could care little if these phonies got "cheap goodies".
One can't help but wonder if this is in some way tied to Modi taking over and perhaps having indicated that he's not going to play ball with the west in certain ways such as removing restrictions on gold imports into India.
Actually, I am so glad they found the flies. I wish they found some maggots too !! If there is anything that drives up inflation in India then these exports to countries / zones with phonily propped up currencies is the big culprit. Exporters are too glad to get bigger profits by sending goods to these places while the local population finds everything has now become costly. Let the Indians enjoy the Alphonso this year - flies or not !! It is after all the King of Fruits.
"...zones with phonily propped up currencies...". you mean phonily propped down currency, in the case of the EUR
Propped up versus the INR is how I see it making exports to EU more profitable and less incentive to sell to locals.
In fact prices have already dropped a bit in India and people are only too happy to consume this special mango. Far superior to any other mango I have ever had.
And even better, they can have the Kasmiri apples and peaches this year instead of exporting them and importing hybridised Washington apples for the locals.
"instead of exporting them and importing hybridised Washington apples for the locals."
In my part of the US we used to be able to buy New Zealand Braeburn apples, and Granny Smiths from I forget where but at that time not from US. Now Braeburns and Grannys are grown here but are far inferior to the original products from elsewhere, tasteless and flat. I don't buy apples anymore, they are terrible.
Maybe Nature had a plan when it set up a certain order on planet earth and we are dismantling that order rather quickly. Nature will exact a price from us for sure !!
yes, but while we are busy keeping the EUR down, the Indian CB is busy keeping the INR up
I tried the Kashmiri apples. delicious. have to try the peaches, then. but again, I don't really approve of all this foodstuff being traded this way. particularly when it's the locals suffering from it, as in your example
"In 2013 a consignment of mangos was discovered to be infested with fruit flies"
Ummm...hel-LO EU? Fruit flies HAPPEN when you put a lot of fruit in one place. Like in shipping containers...
And, apparently they were FOUND, so I'm thinking that maybe the system you have in place...worked?
So, I'm also thinking that maybe India is right to be a little po'd...But carry on by all means. It's not like India is the ONLY other big economy out there...why there's China and Russia and ...oh yeah, I forgot, you have issues with them too...
Damn, EU! You are plum running OUT of economies to keep your pantries stocked! Looks like you all might be ordering some GMO's from across the pond one of these days...
nom, nom, nom...
mangoes are transported in refrigerated shipping containers, which should not attract any fruit flies. we are talking about high-quality, hand-picked products, here
your comment is very strange, imho
I got news for you...ALL farm products carry the risk of insect pests, it's a given. All that can be done is to lessen the problem, but you cannot eliminate it. Refrigeration helps, but it is not a panacea, and people have got to get over their sqeamishness about 'buggies' in their food. Anyone importing foreign fruits and vegetables also knows the risk of foreign pests coming in, and although they do succeed most times, THAT system isn't perfect either, as we have learned, with certain foreign pests that have taken hold here. If you are going to 'trade' food products globally, you are going to trade pests too, period.
But the system apparently DID work here, as the fruit flies were discovered. So what is their problem?
And, their reaction to this non-issue is to piss-off a major trading partner? THAT is what's strange, not my comment.
and I have news for you: it is absolutely possible to keep fruits pest-free. particularly for high-priced, hand-picked luxury fruits. and if you can't, you should not ship them around the world
at this very moment the NZ government is going apeshit about Australian fruit flies been spotted on their islands. tell them not to worry: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=1123...
again, why are we even supposed to trade food globally? is there a FreeTrade god to appease?
Ghordius, I never suggested we SHOULD be trading food, or anything else, globally. I think this whole global-trading thing is more trouble than it's worth.
But that being said, I must stand by my assertion that we cannot HAVE global food-trading without also trading pests. Food is a biological product, and cannot be 'sterilized' the way other products can be. The risk comes WITH the product, and if you want the product, you WILL get the risk.
I wasn't defending global food trade. Just trying to explain that if you DO allow it, you will have the logical consequences. The EU's position is hypocritical. They have promulgated the whole global-trade mantra...they WANTED this. THEY are the ones who encourage all these countries to ship their shit all over the world, and give them the financial incentives and penalties to keep them and their economies deeply intertwined with everyone eles's. Now they are going to turn around and give India grief because of fruit flies on the mangoes? The mangoes that DON'T grow in Europe, and that the European's didn't NEED? The mangoes that they ASKED India to send to them in the first place? Rather than isolate and destroy the offending produce, and take the attitude of, "Well, shit happens, and that's why it's good we have rules in place that let us catch it.", they get all 'huffy' about the damned flies, and 'punish' India...
It's not like India deliberately contaminated their produce!
Those who WANT all this global trade have to accept that if you want the "mangoes" from an exotic foreign land, you may also get their "fruit flies". And you can apply that principal to ALL items being traded globally.
"cannot be 'sterilized'"
But these products ARE "sterilized", they are irradiated.... a whole other subject since the packed-to-the-gills items in the centers of trucks of produce or other food that are "irradiated" may not be touched by rays at all...
As someone said, it's all a sham. I'll add "expensive" and "devious".
"They have promulgated the whole global-trade mantra". did we?
ah, of course, our British cousins. and Americans, too. practically like a religion, so your "mantra" is more than correct. in fact Brits joined the EU because it's moar "free trade", and eventually might leave after realizing that they utterly misunderstood us
yes, your points are imo valid. yet the "trade game" functions differently. if you go back to the article, you'll see that it's not a "big hit". yet no, I don't think it should be handled differently, and no, it is absolutely unnecessary to be lax when it comes to fruit flies, it's really not difficult to fumigate them
Fumigate them and you end up poisoning someone. Then you have lawsuits, and boycotts, and nasty posts on fruit importer's Facebook pages...Global trade is a messy business, and someone always ends up cleaning up the mess afterwards.
It would be so much nicer if we went back to the old way, where each country was it's own THING, and didn't have to "compete" with everyone else. Then the more advanced couldn't take advantage of the less advanced, and each could adapt it's own economy as needed...for THAT country.
Now, the EU has screwed the mango growers of India. Where most of the mango workers probably live in homes with dirt floors. And all because "Todd" in London would have been too squeamish to tolerate a few fruit flies on his breakfast fruit plate...
Countries aren't better or worse than each other. They are DIFFERENT, and those differences should be respected instead of being forced into some kind of global homogenization. Don't complain about the fruit flies on the mangoes, and the villager in Bumfuck, Mumbai won't complain about the Western porn his kids can access on their telephones these days...It's all relative
Fruit flies are a diversion. The sub-rosa agenda is control - control of nations, populations and resources. The beast has swallowed the EU but is having a bit of indigestion with the U.S. and India in my view.
Why tip-toe around the monster in the room?
This is "Fight Club" isn't it?
Idiotism of the West/EU at finest.
here an example about the dangers of shipping insects all around the globe: the new "globalist" ants: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm
"new globalist ants: http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm"
Insects definitely smarter than humans. I've always read that insects will still be here after humans are gone...
I disagree. fruit flies aren't really meant to be shipped around the world, for example. and exotic fruits aren't a necessity, imho
in fact, I don't see why every continent should not grow it's own food, and I don't see why we should import any sub-standard food from elsewhere, or relax any food standard for the sake of the "free trade" religion
and don't get me on the theme of that damn GMO food that the US Agri-Business MegaCorps want so desperately to ship to us
I lived in Californis when the fruit fly was "introduced". Being aerial sprayed and having state workers putting traps in your trees as fruit drops from infestation is not worth it. Keep your mangoes. People have been killed from leaping river carp. The list just keeps getting worse.
+100 Ghordius. (bet you never expected to hear this)
As for GMO, there are few crimes against humanity that compare to gmo. Of course, we won't realize this for a few more years...
These are the unintended consequences of global trade. Biological systems are IMPOSSIBLE to 'control', and life forms will ALWAYS take advantage of any travel opportunities offered. Frquently, the insects that hitchhike in aren't visible at the time...they are eggs or larvae, well-hidden INSIDE produce.
And sometimes people are just plain stupid, importing what they think are 'useful' life-forms, only to find that they behave very differently here, and have no natural enemies to keep them under control. Like kudzu, which was imported to help stop erosion. Oh, it stops erosion all right...but now it is literally consuming vast stretches of the south. In Japan, the vine is controlled by the environment it developed in, but here, it just ran wild with no such controls.
Those who want global trade have got to figure out how to handle the unwanted 'benefits' as well, because they are inevitable.
Biodiversity is the result of populations developing apart from one another, and is necessary for a healthy ecosystem. Start throwing everything together, and you may get more uniformity, but you also lessen the biodiversity, which means it becomes ridiculously easy to wipe out an entire population with disease.
Asbestos
Really Ghordius? You think it's true? The good ole boys in EU looking after you? While you eat horse meat and rat meat and CJD infected meat and this and that and other such craziness?
I like you man, you are wise and naive all at once. It's a sham! All of it.
The Average Indian/Indian farmer is on the chopping block, that is the big problem!
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/mera-bharat-mahaan-ahhhaaaaha...
The article you link to is about Dole and has nothing to do with fruit flies. Dole is a very agressive company who wants to replace Indian bananas with imported Dole bananas, which would compete with local farmers.
The article is also against importing fruit, which means that if you agree with the article that you are also against exporting fruit, right?
The EU wants to avoid infestation, which is a real problem. The export to to the EU is not bringing any money to local Indian farmers, the big profits go to traders.
So, get your facts straight, and pick your battles.
I think you need to learn how the world really works young jedi.
Also, the article linked above is my rant against the system in India and at large.
And the un-fairness of it as India is flooded with waxed, gmo foreign fruit from the world over.
So, there are no easy positions in a complex world, see?
Stay loose, ready to embrace radical disclosures. You are batting from a shallow faunt of knowing.
I'd suggest a more conversational tone for a first time outreach next time. ;-)
*chickens*
I have some hands-on experience with food industries in the EU and outside. And yes, there is a lot of things the EU is keeping out for which I'm thankful
I don't mind horse meat, btw. And the great Romanian Horse Meat scandal... well, that stuff was already inside the EU, wasn't it? like bees, the EU critters watch borders, not what is inside, which is a national matter anyway
I was not aware of the average Indian farmer producing fancy mangoes for export, and I don't blame him, just the packaging companies which should be able to keep fruit flies and other contaminations at bay
Ghordius, dear ole chap, just to make sure, what Romanian Horse Meat Scandal are you talking about?
Oh I know... are you referring about the Romanian Horse Meat scandal when a Cyprus company based in The Netherlands bought horse meat from Romania, and the meat was labeled correctly by the Romanian companies, but then sold that meat to French companies that then sold the meat as cow meat to UK and Ireland? That scandal right? /sarc
If that is the case, well you should change the word Romanian to Filthy Western Greedy Fucking Capitalists Horse Meat Scandal.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_meat_adulteration_scandal#Source_of_me...
Let me remind another nugget of Western foods scandal.
A couple of years back there was this scandal about Spain exporting unclean tomatoes and cucumbers to the nordic countries.
And the German press, after a couple of people got sick and died, started on a campaign to demonize Spanish agricultural produce. Only trouble is, that after the investigation was concluded, the culprit was a German company with low standards in Germany, producing shitty legume for salads, again in Germany, that got Germans sick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak
Looks to me that Greedy Fucking Westerners always lay the blame on poor and weak countries, because it's soo easy to deflect the blame.
Fucking Germans and fucking French. Or as the great American thinker Victoria Nuland put it, FUCK THE EU, dear ole chap Ghordius.
This "scandal" with India is probably some sort of war between a Western European corporation that maybe wants to send a message to India or some sort of tactic.
As weeks pass, we will know the real deal.
thanks. you are right, it's unfair to call it a Romanian Horse Meat Scandal when the Romanian companies labeled that meat correctly. I was not aware of that part
I'm old enough to remember the big olive oil and wine scandals, btw. yet I disagree with the rest of your conclusions
True, but the EU also sold tainted meat products to the rest of the world, no?
Point I was making is that to think officialdom is on "our" side is just not true.
Only vested interests rule.
And you should really check this one and pass it around if called:
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/un-holy-smoke-and-biblical-fi...
The EU has/had far worse than fruit flies happening.
Conchita Wurst? Mind fukkery anyone?
You see?
ori
Dude/Dudette
Why the fuck are you pimping your own blog?
Is that a fucking rhetorical question, or what?
Because I feel it is pertinent and adds it's own flavour to the dialouge, perhaps?
fucking twit....
Before the Brits came, in many countries (also India) the third sex was accepted and often reveered.
You show remarkable colonial acceptance by making fun of Conchita Wurst.
You show signs of severe HIS* disorder.
Too long HIS* leads, magically to HIA** disorder, usually uncurable unless Uranus works in your favour, if you know what I mean.
ori
*HIS : Head In Sand
**HIA : Head In Ass
Conchita Wurst sounds like food, but I would not advise eating her. or him. or it. whatever. are you asking for EU regulation on bearded transvestites? I shudder... we could of course ban the wrong curvature of their... bananas?
I don't recall a tainted meat export scandal, yet again, as in the case of the bees... wasn't it a case of the importer officialdom to watch out? that's the way those things are organized
our officialdom isn't perfect by far. yet they do the right thing, from time to time. or they have to be kicked until they do, something that is still possible, here, and a great source of EU Myths