03/09/07 Apple Export Issue

Resolving the Apple Export Issue. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. In a letter to the Ambassador of South Africa, Washington Congressman Doc Hastings requested assistance in resolving long-standing market access issue involving the export of apples from Washington, Oregon and Idaho. HASTINGS: What has happened there is we've always in the past had problems with South Africa of letting our apples come into their country and that is based primarily on phytosanitary issues. Hastings says he's urging the Ambassador to sit down and get the problems worked out. HASTINGS: What my letter to the Ambassador asked is, okay let's narrow this down by you bringing what your problems are  or letting us know what those problems are so we can sit down and negotiate these things. And hopefully that will happen sooner than later because there was a representative to South Africa in our area looking at our apples and I think these things need to be resolved. Hastings has been working on not only the export situation but also the labor crisis that will affect growers in the northwest. He says there may be some relief but probably nothing concrete until 2008. HASTINGS: There could be something very narrowly passed dealing only with agriculture. That's certainly a possibility; I would support that. But right now it is so hard to talk about what is going to pass and the timeliness of whatever is going to get introduced and the make up of that to be passed. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.