Bananas from the Philippines can now be exported to the U.S.
In a final rule issued Feb. 7, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service amended its regulations to permit the importation of fresh bananas from the Philippines under certain conditions.
Protocols for growing/shipping include monitoring of fruit flies to establish low-prevalence places of production, harvesting only of hard green bananas and inspection for quarantine pests by the national plant protection organization of the Philippines, according to the rule, which was published in the Federal Register.
Bananas also will need to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate with an additional declaration stating that they were grown, packed and inspected and found to be free of quarantine pests in accordance with the proposed requirements.
The measures are designed to protect against the introduction of plant pests into the U.S.
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