USDA considers persimmon imports from Japan

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow the import of fresh persimmon with calyxes, or bumps from the fruit’s flowers, from Japan into the United States.    The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is proposing to allow the import of fresh persimmon with calyxes, or bumps from the fruit’s flowers, from Japan into the United States.
   After completing a comprehensive pest risk analysis, APHIS said it has determined persimmon with calyxes produced in Japan can be safely imported into the United States under a so-called “systems approach.”
   The systems approach would require a number of safeguards to reduce any risk of pest transfer to the United States. This process includes registration and monitoring of production places and packinghouses; pest control practices; fruit sampling; removal of damage, deformed or diseased fruit; traceability to the place of production; and port of entry inspection for quarantine pests by the Japanese national plant protection organization, APHIS said.
   The agency also said these shipments will require a phytosanitary certificate with an additional declaration stating that, “persimmon with calyxes have been inspected and found to be free of quarantine pests and were produced in accordance with the proposed requirements.”
   APHIS will consider comments of its proposed rule by Oct. 31.
   The agency has recently published similar proposed rulemakings for the import of fresh persimmons from New Zealand, raspberries from Morocco and lemons from Chile.