Chinese Put County Citrus to the Test
In one of the final steps before their country begins accepting California citrus imports, Chinese agricultural officials visited Ventura County on Wednesday, inspecting the county’s ability to keep its fruit free of destructive pests.
The Chinese delegation stopped at the Port of Hueneme, the county agricultural commissioner’s office in Santa Paula and local citrus sites in Piru and Fillmore as part of a tour that has already taken them to Florida, Texas and Arizona.
Ventura is the second of six counties the Chinese will visit in the state.
“It’s a really good sign they’re here,” said Earl McPhail, Ventura County’s agricultural commissioner. “We were all beginning to wonder if this was really going to happen.”
Citrus growers and trade associations have lobbied a decade for a trade agreement with China, which stopped accepting U.S. citrus imports 50 years ago. After the signing of a U.S.-China accord in April, the Chinese need only to certify the state’s compliance with Medfly and other pest-avoidance procedures before accepting the county’s oranges and lemons.
“We’re ready to send our citrus right out the door,” said Jean-Mari Peltier of Pomona, president of the California Citrus Quality Council.
Hong Kong already accepts about $100 million in California citrus each year, and once mainland China opens up and the country reduces its tariffs, as it has promised, that amount will most likely double, Peltier said.
Specific figures for local sales to Hong Kong were not available, according to the Ventura County Farm Bureau.
China already has a wealthy number of orange groves scattered through its mountainous country, but county growers say California oranges are often of better quality and that lemons could be an excellent growth market.
“This will be a terrific windfall,” said Paul Leavens, a Santa Paula grower. “I think we’ll have to develop [a market for lemons there]. But Japan has been huge, and they didn’t have lemons before.”
Leavens said he recently was forced to sell half his lemons as juice or oil--at far cheaper prices than he can sell the whole fruit--and that the opening of China, and a chance to reach its 1.2 billion consumers, will be an excellent opportunity to sell more of his fresh produce.
California growers, who will not be competing with the same varieties of oranges grown in China, say their target is the growing Chinese middle class.
“China is one of the countries where 10% of the people have 90% of the wealth,” said Bill Quarles, vice president of corporate communications at Sunkist. “That 10% is our market.”
The Chinese delegates, for their part, spent the day peppering officials with questions, inspecting some of the county’s sticky pest-detection traps and lamenting the resistance of the United States to Chinese produce.
The United States imports only a handful of Chinese fruits and vegetables, including peas and lychees, Chinese delegates said.
“Now, China has opened its agricultural market to the U.S. I am hoping that you can also open the market to China,” said Xia Hongmin, leader of the Chinese delegates, through an interpreter. “Consumers of the two countries can have more choice.”
He said the inspections had gone smoothly and felt assured that Ventura County was free of the Medfly and other pests. The county will be informed “in a timely manner” of the trade status, he said.
In the meantime, country growers say they will continue to lobby for China’s admittance into the World Trade Organization in an effort to open new trade opportunities and force the Chinese into a set of standard trading rules.
China has long been waiting to gain entry into the WTO, but its bid has been denied because of the country’s trade barriers and alleged human rights abuses.
President Clinton is planning an all-out push to win legislative approval of China’s admission, calling the agreement a good deal for America.
Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), who voted against granting China normal trade relations each of the last two years, met with the Chinese at the Port of Hueneme during their morning tour. Two groups of prominent county ranchers have split on support for Gallegly, in part because of his views on China.
Gallegly is concerned over a U.S. trade deficit produced by high Chinese tariffs.
Growers said they are anxious to see China join the WTO because, they said, it would force the world’s third-largest economy into a rules-based trading system.
“We believe that’s in the best interest of Ventura County agriculture and the country,” Quarles said. “That’s a major project for us this year. China can’t be ignored.”
