Summary
Steps to register exporters of horticulture products subject to stricter SPS requirements constitute a first step in ensuring continued access to the EU market. However ensuring new systems are effectively operated will be critical. It remains to be seen whether the resources can be mobilised in Uganda to enhance the effectiveness of the new regulatory framework being established. This is likely to prove critical to whether or not the recent growth in Ugandan horticulture exports to the EU can be sustained.
Following the introduction of a voluntary export ban by the government of Uganda in April 2019 in the face of the EU’s stricter application of EU SPS controls for False Codling Moth (FCM) (see companion epamonitoring.net article ‘Increased Levels of Pest Interception in Uganda Leads to Pre-Emptive Export Ban’, 27 May 2019) the Uganda Export Promotion Board has introduced a system for the ‘registration of all producers of fruits and vegetables for exports’. The aim of this registration scheme is to strengthen ‘efforts to ensure compliance to international sanitary standards, especially in the horticulture sector’, through the ensuring traceability along the supply chain from producer to exporter (1).
In April 2019 the Ugandan Ministry of Agriculture began to apply a strengthened online certification system which it has developed which has improved security features (1)
| Comment and Analysis The moves announced in May 2019 can be seen as reflecting a government response to earlier criticism over its failure to ‘enact stringent regulations on who and how to export’If effectively implemented the new regulatory system and enhanced IT systems should enable the identification of producers which are not compliant with the requirements of export markets, with efforts then being focussed on excluding such suppliers from sensitive supply chains, until such time as remedial measures have been effectively introduced.However ensuring new systems are effectively operated will be critical, with the severe staff shortages in the National Plant Protection Organisation identified in the EU’s 2016 inspection report remaining.Unless these staff shortages are addressed through increased levels of recruitment and training and improved collaboration with a better organised private sector, technical innovations and regulatory strengthening will prove ineffective. Against this background the experience of South Africa under its Phytclean electronic compliance database scheme could prove instructive. Collaboration across ACP countries in identifying the priorities and pitfalls in using IT systems to strengthen traceability and enforcement or production requirements along SPS sensitive export supply chains could prove of value in addressing the increasing difficult challenge of retaining access to the EU market. |
Sources
(1) kfm.co.ug, ‘No ban on Ugandan exports to Europe’, 21 May 2019
https://www.freshplaza.com/article/9106540/no-ban-on-ugandan-exports-to-europe/