Trade Mission Part 3

Trade Mission Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

A delegation from Washington State is just back from a trade mission to India and S. Korea. Mark Powers, VP of the NW Hort Association accompanied the Governor and others to look at ways to improve trade for Washington fruit and other commodities.

POWERS: In Korea it’s really - we’re talking about cherries there and we aren’t able to export apples and pears to S. Korea due to phytosanitary concerns that they have, that have been long-standing and we’ve been trying to get access since the mid-90’s. But they produce a lot of apples and pears in Korea and that segment of agriculture is extremely sensitive. Probably second on to rice.

He says there has been very little progress made in the market for U.S. exports.

POWERS: So again taking opportunity to make the ask and to suggest that we’re open to finding solutions that might be somewhat less than full access or how we could work with the Korean government to address their pest concerns and their grower concerns and yet still start to crack into that market.

But again he says they have done well when it comes to cherries.

POWERS: It has been a very successful market, a growth market. We have had access since 1984 and it’s always been under a fumigation protocol again. But under the free trade agreement that was negotiated and went into effect in March of this year the tariff on cherries dropped from 24% to zero and that in addition to an excellent crop resulted in an 86% increase in exports to Korea.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.