The U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has announced a proposed new fee for imported cargo requiring treatment as a condition of entry, which one company has said could indirectly impact sales with consumers bearing some of the cost.

The change being considered to the Agricultural Quarantine Inspection (AQI) program would see an introduction of a US$375 fee applied that APHIS says is to recover the costs of its services.

Produce customs brokerage J&K Fresh told www.freshfruitportal.com it believed the proposals would impact negatively on businesses and could have further-reaching consequences.

"If you’re going into a port city like Miami with heavy volumes, the fumigation is done by treatment or covering, so you could group a lot together. But if you have a small shipment of asparagus coming into Los Angeles where there are low volumes, the per pallet cost is going to be a lot higher," company president Lynette Keffer said.

"I think it will reduce imports, and if they continue to import eventually prices are going to get passed down to the ultimate consumer, which could reduce demand."

In response to APHIS' claims it was currently not covering the costs of some of its services, Keffer said any changes should not affect one sole group so harshly.

"I would say if there needs to be a fee collected to supplement the shortfall, they need to look across the board and do it in an equitable and fair manner - not just to one individual section of stakeholders," she said.

"It just seems like they’re putting a big part of the burden on stakeholders that use treatment as a requirement of entry."

Online comments can be made on the proposals, and Keffer strongly urged anyone who might be affected to voice their concerns.

"The more comments, and the more validity to those comments, the better. For example, smaller brokers who say it will have a negative impact on supplying fresh produce to the American food supply, that will all carry," she said.

"There could also be relevant things the importer knows about their product that the USDA [United States Department of Agriculture] isn’t aware of."

The current deadline for comments is June 24, though at least one request has been made to extend it.

Click here to comment on the issue.

Photo: www.shutterstock.com

www.freshfruitportal.com