The US Department of Agriculture yesterday approved the imports of fresh guava from Taiwan after 10 years of negotiations, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said yesterday.
Taiwan is an endemic area of the oriental fruit fly (Bactrocera dorsalis), the melon fruit fly (Bactrocera cucurbitae) and the fruit fly (Bactrocera tau) — pests that might be found on guavas grown in Taiwan.
The two sides have been discussing quarantine requirements on pests to address these concerns, COA Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Deputy Director-General Chou Hui-chuan (鄒慧娟) said.
Photo courtesy of the Council of Agriculture
The application was filed to the US 10 years ago, along with documents of production management, pest species and pest control regulations, she said.
The evaluation on the US side took a long time, Chou said, adding that after documents were reviewed on the first round, the US sent delegations to inspect the certification and product management systems in Taiwan.
Fresh guavas are to be stored in an environment below 1?C for 17 consecutive days before arriving in the US, and cover bags will be applied to keep pests away from smaller guavas that have a diameter of less than 4 cm, the council said.
Every location of guava production and packing has to be officially registered and certified, Chou said.
Taiwan is the first country after Mexico that has been authorized to import fresh guavas into the US, she added.
After the announcement comes into effect, both sides will sign more documents and confirm further directions for farmers to follow, Chou said, adding that the first shipment of guavas could be sent to the US as early as the end of this year.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,