04/25/07 Dealing With MRL's

Dealing with MRL's. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. In a perfect world, fruit growers could grow the fruit, pack it into boxes, ship it all over the globe and people far and wide could enjoy the - 'scuse the pun  fruits of the labor. But all things are not perfect or equal and one of those things is something called MRL. Maximum Residue Levels. And it's something exporters and importer alike have to deal with. Japan is one of those markets that really like Northwest cherries but there are limits as Northwest Horticultural Council's Technical Issues Manager, Deborah Carter explains. CARTER: In 2006 they issued what they called their positive MRL list. There are substances that have MRL's established but there are also substances that don't have MRL's. What they've done is said we are going to make sure that they are not toxic, that they pose no adverse health effect and so they set a level of 0.01 parts per million of whatever that chemical is. And if keeping track of that wasn't enough&each country has their own MRL's. CARTER: What's called globalization of MRL's and what that is, is making sure all of the countries that product is imported and exported to maintain MRL's that are equivalent throughout all the countries that we export to, or import from. A meeting is planned for later on this year to try and standardize MRL's worldwide. CARTER: Every country realizes that it's a problem but nobody wants to give on this. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.