A contingent of Brazilian officials met with local technicians from Iscamen, Senasa authorities, and the Association of Producers and Exporters of Fresh Fruit from Mendoza (ASPEFF) in order to audit Argentina's apple, pear, and quinces export program. During the meeting, they discussed the regional activities related to the operational program and agreed on the points and methodology that was going to be used during the audit.
The Brazilian officials have visited fruit packing facilities in General Alvear and farms in the South oasis to get to know the work being carried out to mitigate the codling moth pest.
The codling moth is an endemic plague of the Province of Mendoza and it is controlled through joint applications at the right time. To do this, the Iscamen, through an extensive network of monitoring, works in prevention and mitigation so that the plague does not affect local products.
Codling moth controls started after Brazil rejected Argentina's topfruit. As a result, Argentina implemented a system in 2002, to make sure that their fruits don't contain codling moth larvae that might compromise Brazil's own effort to combat this plague.
Since then Argentine topfruit exports (apple, pear and quince) to Brazil are subjected to a certification system that provides controls and monitoring of the products; i.e. the risk mitigation system or SMR.
