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 The commitment statements, drafted by the Agriculture Transportation
Coalition (AgTC), are meant only to assure importers that shipments
have been harvested, processed and handled consistent with industry
safety standards and guidelines from medical experts.
The move comes after China's customs authority last week asked food
exporters to the country to sign official declarations their produce
is not contaminated by the novel coronavirus.
Chinese demands for the guarantees have roiled the food and
agriculture sector and are causing some shippers to forego the China
trade, U.S. produce growers group said on Friday.
"You're not signing your name to a guarantee that they have no
coronavirus. Nobody can do that. Coronavirus does not live on food
or plants," said Peter Friedmann, executive director of AgTC, which
represents mostly exporters of U.S. agricultural products in
shipping containers.
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Exporters cannot guarantee that cargo will remain free of the virus after it
leaves their facilities, Friedmann said.
"If a Chinese customs inspector has the virus and he handles something, someone
can come back later and say that shipment has coronavirus," he said.
Chinese customs officials have not confirmed that the commitment statements are
acceptable replacements for their official declarations, but no AgTC members
have reported any related shipping issues to date.
(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
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