Justin Chadwick
www.dailymaverick.co.za
Despite one of the best seasons on record in mitigating the risk of Citrus Black Spot symptoms on fruit arriving at EU borders, the EU seems determined to meet South Africa’s best efforts with unflinching bureaucratic coldness.
The Rewe supermarket in Mitte, Berlin – along the banks of the Spree River – has a selection of Stellenbosch wine, chakalaka flavoured chips and baskets of fresh South African oranges. None of which, in the globalised 2018 world, is surprising or out of place. All of which makes it so difficult to accept the European Union’s (EU) relentless and equally hardkoppige 26-year campaign to keep those oranges off the shelves – citing something called citrus black spot (CBS).
CBS is the fungal disease that can be transmitted through the movement of infected plant material that has presented an ongoing dispute between SA and the EU, since 1992. And yet despite science refuting the EU’s claims that citrus fruit is a “pathway” for CBS transmission – and besides the fact that EU climate is unsuitable for CBS establishment – South Africa has borne the brunt of CBS interceptions for what seems like an interminable time.