Five months have passed since U.S. authorities froze the signing of the Systems Approach protocol for Chilean table grapes, an initiative that for years worked on the development and implementation of sustainable agronomic management to eradicate quarantine pests and thus expedite their export and import to the North American market.
According to Kurt Neuling, manager of the Transforma Fruticultura Sustentable Program (Perfruts), the situation "is serious and impacts sustainability, the rural world, and communities."
"It is important to understand that for more than a decade, the Systems Approach has been addressed as a challenge that involves the participation of all the actors in the industry to raise the quality of our table grapes and effectively and sustainably control pests, ensuring responsibility with the environment and the profitability of the producers themselves. However, we all expected the signing of this protocol to materialize during 2023 by the United States, especially if we consider that it has already passed all the required stages," he said.
In that sense, Neuling emphasized that "we must understand that this obstacle to the Systems Approach not only affects our producers and our objective of advancing in terms of sustainability but also implies evident social, economic, labor and -particularly- human consequences."
"We thank the different unions, associations, academia, producers, agricultural people, and the country's own authorities, who have been working together to achieve the green light for the Systems Approach. However, more than 5 months have passed and we still have no news. It is necessary to understand that the sustainability of table grapes is at stake," he concluded.
