United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Plant Protection and Quarantine Risk Management Document Importation of Banana, Musa spp., as Fresh, Hard Green Fruit from the Philippines to Guam, Hawaii, and the Northern Mariana Islands February 13, 2013 Plant Health Programs (PHP) Regulations, Permits and Manuals (RPM) Contact Person: Meredith Jones Introduction A Pest Risk Assessment (PRA) was submitted by the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) to Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in December 2005 in support of a market access request for Philippine green bananas to Guam (BPI, 2005). This pest risk assessment was prepared for Dole Philippines, Inc., Dole Asia Ltd., Makati, Philippines. In May 2007, BPI amended the market access request to include Hawaii and the Northern Mariana Islands. APHIS reviewed the relevant literature and pest interception records and revised the PRA submitted by BPI (USDA, 2012a). The APHIS pest list identified 62 quarantine pests of banana which might potentially follow the pathway of fresh green bananas from the Philippines: Taxa Pest Arthropods Acari: Tenuipalpidae Brevipalpus californicus (Banks) Brevipalpus phoenicis (Geijskes) Coleoptera: Anthribidae Araecerus coffeae (Fabricius) Coleoptera: Cerambycidae Sybra alternans Wiedemann Coleoptera: Curculionidae Metamasius hemipterus Linnaeus Philicoptus waltoni (Boheman) Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae Scapanes australis Boisduval Diptera: Muscidae Atherigona orientalis Schiner Diptera: Tephritidae Bactrocera occipitalis (Bezzi) Bactrocera philippinensis Drew and Hancock Bactrocera musae (Tryon) Diptera: Stratiomyidae Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus) Hemiptera: Aphididae Rhopalosiphum padi Linnaeus Hemiptera: Coccidae Ceroplastes cirripediformis Comstock Ceroplastes rubens Maskell Coccus longulus (Douglas) Hemiptera: Coreidae Leptoglossus gonagra (Fabricius) Hemiptera: Diaspididae Aonidiella aurantii (Maskell) Aonidiella comperei McKenzie Aonidiella orientalis (Newstead) Aspidiotus coryphae Cockerell and Robinson Aspidiotus excisus Green Chrysomphalus aonidum (Linnaeus) Hemiberlesia lataniae (Signoret) Hemiberlesia palmae (Cockerell) Hemiberlesia rapax (Comstock) 2 Taxa Pest Lepidosaphes beckii (Newman) Lepidosaphes similis Beardsley Mycetaspis personata (Comstock) Parlatoria proteus (Curtis) Pinnaspis aspidistrae aspidistrae (Signoret) Pinnaspis buxi (BouchT) Pinnaspis musae Takagi Pinnsaspis strachani (Cooley) Pseudaulacaspis cockerelli (Cooley) Selenaspidus articulatus (Morgan) Unaspis citri (Comstock) Arthropods Hemiptera: Margarodidae Icerya aegyptiaca Douglas Icerya pulcher (Leonardi) Icerya seychellanum (Westwood) Hemiptera: Pentatomidae Tessaratoma papillosa (Drury) Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae Geococcus coffeae Green Maconellicoccus hirsutus (Green) Planococcus lilacinus (Cockerell) Pseudococcus cryptus Hempel Pseudococcus jackbeardsleyi Gimpel and Miller Pseudococcus longispinus (Targioni Tozzetti) Rastrococcus invadens Williams Rastrococcus spinosus (Robinson) Lepidoptera: Limacodidae Parasa lepida (Cramer) Lepidoptera: Noctuidae Agrotis ipsilon (Hufnagel) Spodoptera exigua (Hubner) Lepidoptera: Pyralidae Diaphania indica (Saunders) Orthoptera: Acrididae Chondracris rosea (DeGeer) Locusta migratoria (Linnaeus) Melicodes tenebrosa Walker Valanga nigricornis Burmeister Thysanoptera: Thripidae Hercinothrips femoralis (Reuter) Thrips florum Schmutz Thrips hawaiiensis (Morgan) Mollusca Achitinidae Achatina fulica Bowdich Weed Imperata cylindrica (L.) Beauv. Bacteria Burkholderiales: Ralstonia solanacearum (Smith) Yabuuchi et al., Burkholdericeae Race 2, Biovar 1 Since the PRA was developed APHIS has deregulated several pests including: 3 Chaetanaphothrips signipennis (Bagnall), Planococcus minor (Maskell) and Sybra alternans (Wiedemann) and these pests have been removed from the RMD (USDA, 2012b). The pests listed in this RMD are all expected to be excluded from the pathway of fresh hard green bananas by mitigation measures that are standard industry practices in the Philippines (BPI, 2005; USDA, 2012a). The mitigation measures expected to exclude these pests are from the following list provided to APHIS by BPI (BPI, 2005). Industry Standard Practices A list of industry standard practices for banana production in the Philippines was submitted to APHIS by BPI (BPI, 2005). BPI indicated that these are standard industry practices, and they will mitigate all risk from pests in green bananas from the Philippines. These practices include the following: a) Use of tissue culture (tc) seedlings in new plantings. Tc seedlings are relatively free from insect and disease pests. b) Excellent weed management to limit proliferation of insect and disease pests. c) Pseudostem sanitation to eliminate refuse and breeding sites of insect pests. d) Fruit obstruction removal (FOR) to prevent fruit damage as well as eliminate bridges that may be utilized by the pests to infest the fiuit. e) Insecticidal bud injection to kill the banana flower thrips. f ) Insecticide spray on the pseudostem to eliminate insect pests i.e., mealybugs, aphids, etc. g) Regular bunch spray containing insecticide to prevent mealybugs and scale insects from colonizing the developing fruit bunch. This spray would eliminate fruit flies if present. h) Chlorpyrifos-impregnated polyethylene (PE) bags are used to cover the fruit bunches after bunch spray to further prevent mealybug, scale and fruit fly insect infestation on the fruit. Bags also prevent from disease infections. i) Additional Chlorpyrifos-impregnated PE material (in a form of "strip" or "square") is installed on the fruit as additional control against insect pests when needed. j) Bunches for harvest are identified or tagged one (1) day before harvest in an operation called "pre-calibration". Bunches, in the process, are inspected likewise for the presence of insect pests. Bunches with mealybugs, scales, other insect and disease damage are discarded during harvest. k) Upon arrival of the fruit at the packing plant, fruit bunches are sprayed with highpressure water to eliminate any possible, although highly improbable, mealybug infestation. 1) While bunches are waiting to be de-handed, the “fruit inspector” in the packing plant will check for insect damage, particularly mealybug infestation, on individual bunches. m) During de-handing, individual hands are thoroughly inspected by the "de-hander" for possible mealybug infestation and any other evidence of insect damage. 4 n) After de-handing, individual hands are thoroughly cleaned with soap and water by the fruit selectors and further brushed with high-pressure water to eliminate possible infestation of mealybugs. o) The individual hands are again inspected to confirm freedom from mealybugs and other insects during weighing and immediately before packing inside the box. p) Unused pallets and those that are clean, dry and free from trash, soil, weed seeds and non-weed contaminants are utilized by the industry. q) Fruits stay in the wharf no more than 3 hours before being loaded in the vessel or into cold storage. Wharf areas are maintained, kept clean and are situated away from population areas and farms. Regular cleaning of wharf is done to prevent any source of contamination on exportable fruits. r) Vessels are cleaned with the recommended disinfectant before loading. Some vessels use ozone for disinfection between loads. Some of these practices are viewed as necessary by APHIS and will be included as required risk mitigations. APHIS will also require some additional mitigations that are not on this list provided by BPI. Risk Management Measures - Systems approach for green bananas The following mitifgation measures are required for the systems approach for fresh green bananas. Monitoring and Oversight. The NPPO of the Philippines must provide a workplan to APHIS that details the activities that the NPPO of Philippines will, subject to APHIS’ approval of the workplan, carry out to meet the requirements of the systems approach and specific quarantine treatments that may be required. APHIS will be directly involved with BPI in monitoring and auditing implementation of the systems approach and/or any quarantine treatments. The NPPO of the Philippines must visit and inspect registered places of production starting when fruit bags are emplaced and continuing until the end of the shipping season, to verify that the growers are complying with the requirements of the systems approach including following pest management guidelines and fruit bagging. In addition to conducting inspections at the packinghouses, the NPPO of the Philippines must monitor packinghouse operations to verify that the packinghouses are complying with the requirements of the systems approach. If the NPPO of the Philippines determines that a place of production or packinghouse is not complying with the requirements of the systems approach, no fruit from the place of production or packinghouse will be eligible for export to the United States until the NPPO of the Philippines conduct an investigation and appropriate remedial actions have been implemented. The NPPO of the Philippines must review and maintain all forms and documents related to export program activities in places of production and packinghouses for at least 1 year and, as 5 requested, provide them to APHIS for review. Registered places of production. Bananas must be grown in places of production that are registered with the NPPO of the Philippines. To register, the places of production must provide Philippine's