Efforts to eradicate brown rot are succeeding, yet infected potatoes continue to reach the EU, reports Niveen Wahish At the Plant Health Standing Committee's (PHSC) recent meeting in Brussels the European Commission (EC) authorised Egyptian potato exports to the EU for the 2005/06 export season, running from the end of this year to early spring 2006. The committee's approval signals Egyptian compliance with EU phytosanitary standards and accords with the trade preferences granted to Egypt under the Egypt-EU Association Agreement. Under the current mechanism, intended to prevent potatoes infected with brown rot from entering the EU, the PHSC must give the go ahead for Egyptian exports each season. The system was introduced following the 1994 season when brown rot was detected in large quantities of Egypt's potato exports to the EU. The immediate response was a blanket ban of Egyptian potato export, but this was soon modified to allow Egyptian potatoes to enter the EU providing they met certain conditions. The potatoes must be sourced from approved Pest Free Areas (PFA), and should more than five brown rot infected shipments be intercepted the EU reserves the right to review the entire mechanism. While the EU continues to stop Egyptian potatoes at its borders because of the disease, Egyptian exporters believe European fears are unfounded. They stress that brown rot is harmless to humans and only affects the soil, and that Egypt exports table not seed potatoes. James Howie, from the EC's Directorate General for Health and Consumer Affairs, says brown rot is defined as a quarantine organism and as such is not permitted to enter or move within the EU. "There is zero tolerance for this harmful organism, whether it is found on potatoes entering the EU or on potatoes produced within the EU," explained Howie to a conference, organised by the Ministries of Agriculture and Land Reclamation and of Foreign Trade and Industry in cooperation with the European Union, on EU support for Egyptian pest-free exports of potatoes. Brown rot has plagued the flow of Egyptian potato exports to the EU for years. According to Safwat El-Haddad, head of the Central Administration of Plant Quarantine, Egyptian attempts to control the disease began in 1976. It was only in the wake of the EU ban, however, that Egypt, together with the EU, established the Potato Brown Rot Project (PBRP). The project set up laboratories to test potatoes, and identified a number of PFAs. It has trained local staff and formulated a traceability and report system for brown rot, in addition to providing advice on disease control and undertaking research on the causes of brown rot in Egypt. After eight years' work the project, funded by a 2.6 million euro EU grant and a further two million euros from Egypt, has succeeded in bringing down brown rot infestation rates from 17 per cent to 1.7 per cent, said El-Haddad, who is also head of PBRP. Given the success potato exports to the EU have at last started to rise. Ritske Keestra, expert for rural development and food security at the EC delegation in Cairo points out that Egyptian potatoes have grown from an average of between 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes in the late 1990s to 240,000 tonnes in the 2004/05 season. Despite recent increases, total potato exports to the EU remain well below 400,000 tonnes of table potatoes recorded before the outbreaks of brown rot. The problem, though, has not gone away. While in 2000 there was only one interception of a contaminated shipment to the EU during the last season 28 separate shipments were stopped, according to Howie. He attributes the increased number of contaminated shipments to exporters attempting to by-pass labeling regulations. And this, he explains, is where the danger lies. "If interceptions continue during the next season it will become increasingly difficult to get the committee to agree to an extension of the existing provisions permitting Egyptian potatoes to be imported to the EU." The five interception threshold, Howie explained, is simply a guideline set to test whether the system is working. If interceptions continue to increase it means the system is not working and should be revised. Michele Villani, Egypt desk officer at the EC's Directorate General for Trade in Brussels, stresses that the current system is the best possible compromise between pest prevention and trade flows. While acknowledging the difficulty of eradicating the disease completely, he insists the problem of infected shipments could be solved simply by following the rules, and by punishing those who seek to circumvent the current regulations. EU help in eradicating brown rot in Egypt, Villani said, will continue even after EU administrative support for PBRP ends June 2006. "We have a collective problem. The EU has an immediate interest in stopping interceptions because these jeopardise Egyptian exports and EU market needs." Although Egypt's potato exports to the EU account for nearly 20 per cent of all its agricultural exports, said Villani, they account for only 1.5 per cent of EU total imports from Egypt. Similarly, Egyptian seed potato imports from the EU represent only one third of the value of its potato exports. There is plenty of opportunity to increase potato exports to the EU as Egypt's tariff and duty free quota allocation increases annually under the Egypt-EU Association Agreement and quantities above quota receive a 60 per cent discount even outside the specified season. But to capitalise on the opportunities the problem of brown rot must be solved. Uncertainty, though, is affecting business says Samir El-Naggar, a major exporter of potatoes to the EU, who believes the current mechanism hampers private sector efforts to maintain, let alone expand, their niche in the EU market. Egypt, El-Haddad revealed, plants 200,000 feddans with potatoes yielding some two million tonnes annually of which only 300,000 to 400,000 tonnes reach export markets.
