It was two days before the deadline for comments on a new user fee on fumigating fresh produce when customs broker Frank Ramos talked to The Produce News — and he was upset.

“You don’t go from zero to $375 all at once,” said the president of The Perishable Specialists, headquartered in Miami, FL. “I understand that fees may have to go up, but to go up that much? It’s unfair, it’s unethical.”

Ramos was talking about a proposal from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service that would impose a $375 user fee on the fumigation of any imported fresh product that has that service as a requirement for gaining entry into the United States. As proposed, the fee would be charged for chamber or trailer fumigation as well as for in-transit cold treatment fumigation that is approved for some products under specific circumstances.

Ramos said that for Peruvian asparagus, as well as many other items, the cost is a big issue. He said fumigation services for a 53-foot trailer — which is how most asparagus is fumigated — is in the neighborhood of $350.

“You add this fee on top of that and the fumigation charges have doubled,” he said.

Currently, he said the USDA only charges a fee for the inspection services they provide in concert with fumigations when that service is performed after hours or on weekends.

“Then we have to pay overtime,” he noted. “This will be a separate user fee that will have nothing to do with that.”

Ramos said that 2,800 cases of Peruvian asparagus will fit in a 53-foot trailer, so at least for asparagus there is the opportunity to amortize the user fee over a significant volume of product.

“What if you are bringing in 25 cartons of lettuce that have to be fumigate? You just couldn’t do it,” he said.

In that instance, the user fee would equate to $15 per carton. The new USDA rule proposes that the fee be collected through the custom house brokers.

“We will have to pass that on to the importers and they will have to pass it on to the growers,” he said.

Both individually and collectively, customs brokers and others have sent in their comments on this new proposal. Speaking from experience, Ramos said if it is adopted, it will probably take effect in about two seasons.

Other than this irritant, Ramos said business has been very good and he was looking forward to the typical spike in asparagus business. He said volume typically starts to pick up in mid-August “and then the flood gates open up.”

During the course of the year, Peruvian asparagus is one of the top three items that The Perishable Specialists work for the many produce importers in the Miami area.