With orange exports now underway to the European Union (EU), Citrus Growers’ Association (CGA) of South Africa CEO Justin Chadwick is urging Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Ebrahim Patel to use his departmental budget speech on May 18 as an opportunity to provide an urgent update on government’s interventions to put a stop to the EU’s new False Coddling Moth (FCM) regulations.

On May 16, Chadwick issued a statement calling these regulations unfair and discriminatory, stating that they threaten not only the operations of thousands of growers and the livelihoods they support, but also desperately needed foreign currency revenue coming into the South African economy.  

Months of consultations between the South African government and the EU at a World Trade Organisation (WTO) level have failed to reach mutually agreed concessions between the parties. As a result, growers are being forced to precool their oranges to below 2 ºC and then maintain this temperature for 20 days at significant added cost at a time when profit margins have already been reduced owing to increased input, transport and freight costs, the CGA pointed out. 

“For many, this has made exporting oranges to the region commercially unviable, which is why it is estimated that around 30% or an estimated 120 000 t of fruit produced for the EU will not be sent this export season. This may result in an overall estimated R500-million loss in revenue for growers this year alone,” Chadwick said.

He said the CGA was grateful for the support shown by national government to date, with President Cyril Ramaphosa and Patel both publicly raising the issue at recent high-level engagements with senior politicians and officials from EU countries.

Chadwick added that the CGA also welcomed Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Angela Thoko Didiza’s recent remarks during her budget speech that government was considering setting up a panel in the WTO as part of the dispute resolution mechanism. 

“We believe the establishment of an independent WTO panel that can adjudicate on the matter after considering all evidence presented by both parties is the only way the issue can be resolved. We therefore call on . . . Patel to announce in his budget speech that he will be drawing a line in the sand and will be calling for the establishment of a WTO panel, so we can avert the impending crisis facing the country’s number one agricultural exporter and the 130 000 jobs it supports,” Chadwick said.