New compliance rules for vegetable and fruit exports

Fruit and vegetable exporters will soon have to register with the Plant Protection Wing of the government if they want to ship fresh produce abroad, as part of the government's efforts to rein in noncompliance.

The registration will be made mandatory in the near future for increased monitoring, according to Anwar Faruque, director general of the agriculture ministry's seed wing.

The move comes in the face of the European Union's repeated rejections of fruit and vegetable consignments from Bangladesh for presence of pest in the shipped fresh produce and absence of phyto-sanitary or plant health certificates.

The use of fake phyto-sanitary certificates and doctoring of such documents by a section of errant exporters were the other reasons behind the EU's rejections.

Between January and July this year, the EU refused entry to 43 consignments from Bangladesh, which is already 67 percent of the total rejection notifications the country had faced in 2014.

Registrations with the Plant Protection Wing have already started and 34 firms have signed up so far, according to its Deputy Director Md Anwar Hossain Khan.

As per the conditions of registration, exporters will have to grow pest- and disease-free fruits, vegetables and betel leaves through contract farming. Exporters will also have to get certificates from the upazila agriculture officers that the produce collected from the contract growers is free from pest.

The plant health certificates will be issued based on physical inspections by officials of plant quarantine stations.

At present, there is no contract farming arrangement for such exports. Exporters buy fruits and vegetables either from wholesale markets or from their suppliers in producing regions for shipment.

As a result, the quality of the vegetables cannot be maintained and the source of contamination, in case of pest attacks, remains untraced. “We are now encouraging exporters to go for contract farming to ensure cultivation of safe and quality fruits and vegetables. We hope to make such arrangements mandatory gradually,” Faruque said.

The agriculture ministry will assign sourcing of specific vegetables to certain zones and exporters will have to abide by it, he added. SM Jahangir Hossain, president of Bangladesh Fruits, Vegetables & Allied Products Exporter's Association, said the contract farming system is yet to be developed in the country.

“So, we will have to go slow with contract farming -- it should be done considering the reality.”

Importers place orders for various items, in 100-200 kilograms each, and it is not possible for one particular farmer to supply that high amount on his own, Hossain said.

It will be difficult for an exporter to collect such small quantities of every item from different areas through contract farming, Hossain said, adding that the concept is not viable for business. Hossain said their platform in association with the Department of Agricultural Extension has selected some zones for producing vegetables.

The association is listing farmers producing the vegetables. “Based on the list of farmers, we will start collecting vegetables from the respective areas on a trial basis by maintaining a cool chain,” he added.

The country earned $153 million from exports of vegetables, cut flower and foliage, and fruits in fiscal 2014-15, down 38 percent year-on-year, according to Export Promotion Bureau.