Inspector shortage creates bottleneck for large Mexican grape crop
Inspector shortage creates bottleneck for large Mexican grape crop
A shortage of federal inspectors in Nogales, AZ, compounded by several other issues related to inspections, is creating a bottleneck for arrivals of Mexican table grapes cleared for shipment, just as the harvest is coming into its peak period.
The Mexican grape harvest got off to a slow start this spring, but "now it is coming heavier and heavier, and there are not enough inspectors to inspect the number of loads crossing," Chris Ciruli of Ciruli Bros. LLC in Nogales told The Produce News on May 30. "So while you have a good grape market, you are not actually able to sell everything that is inbound because you can't get it through the inspection process. And it is getting worse and worse every day."
Inspectors are getting "further and further behind," Mr. Ciruli continued. "[The issue] is certainly foremost on a lot of grape growers' minds." Mexican grape producers have "just started hitting their stride right now" in terms of volume. Grape shipments out of Sonora will continue until about mid-July, but the big volume "is coming now."
Jim Pandol of Pandol Associates Marketing Inc. in Delano, CA, concurred. "The volume is really starting to come in a serious way now, so what was a bad situation will ... grow worse," he said. There is more volume coming in than in past years, and there are fewer inspectors to carry out the inspections mandated by marketing orders, so that is "holding up shipments" from the warehouses in Nogales to customers. "I am wondering if it really should be taking that long to get inspections done."
"We've got a nice product to sell," said Jerry Havel of Fresh Farms in Nogales. "It is [here] in volume ... and so far the quality has not been an issue for anybody, so that is good news." Inspectors are doing their best to keep up with the volume, but they have been unable to do so, he said.
Lee Frankel, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas in Nogales, explained that "a combination of things hit at the same time," contributing to the inspection delays. The net effect, he said, is that "product is crossing [that] is not able to be shipped out in a timely manner."
One death and two or three departures left the inspection team in Nogales shorthanded in a year when volume is up substantially over what it was in 2006, according to Mr. Frankel.
Adding to the burden is the fact that there is "a large number of people without much of a history of a presence in Nogales that are in the grape deal" this year who are "using warehouses where there is not very much product." The marketing order inspections are performed not at the border crossing but in the warehouses in Nogales, so that proliferation of warehouses with small volumes of gapes "is making inspectors spend a lot of time driving between inspections."
Another major factor contributing to the bottleneck is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture "did not make it enough of a priority" to hire the programmers needed to "work through their technical issues" to be able to implement available software that could cut inspection time by about half, said Mr. Frankel. The software, once in use, will significantly reduce the time needed for writing up the inspection results and "almost double the productivity for inspectors during grape season."
Without that software, inspectors are "forced to use paper" rather than electronic reports and to make computations with a calculator rather than entering the data in a computer, he said. "If the federal software was able to be used, instead of an inspector taking 56 minutes on average to make an inspection and write the report, it would be down to about 25 to 30 minutes."
Another problem is on the industry side. For the first time in several years, U.S. Customs & Border Protection has opened the port of entry on Sundays during peak shipping periods so that "more product is available to be ... staged for inspections," Mr. Frankel said. That should allow for "more efficient use" of the inspectors' time. But at one warehouse last Sunday [May 26], only one worker was on the job to stage product for inspection by the three inspectors who were present," so the inspectors were unable to work efficiently.
"There are things the industry can do to help the process," Mr. Frankel said. That is especially true with companies that are not members of the association and who "don't respect the communications of the association." They are "contributing significantly to the problem," he said.
"On the solution side," several things are being done to try to speed up the inspection process and minimize, if not eliminate, the bottleneck, Mr. Frankel noted. There will be six or seven federal inspectors "coming in to help out, to provide additional resources, to get the inspections done," he said. That will increase capacity by about 20 percent.
To help ease the pressure, watermelon shippers and Arizona officials have negotiated an agreement to temporarily suspend watermelon inspections, freeing up "four or five full-time-equivalent inspectors to work on grapes" during the peak grape volume period, he said.
While those measures will help, they may not be enough. "I hope there is a way to get a few more inspectors out here," Mr. Frankel said.
The industry could bring as many as 500,000 boxes of grapes a day across the border over the next few weeks, a flow that is similar to what was seen in 2005, Mr. Frankel said. "We were having problems when there were only 300,000 boxes a day crossing." The FPAA will continue working with Washington to try to "see if there is a way" to speed up the inspection process, he said.
So far, "USDA hasn't done the right job of making sure that there are enough inspectors available to make sure the products are inspected within, say, 24 to 48 hours after crossing," he said. "It is getting very close to a trade barrier in terms of inspection delays."
The Mexican grape harvest got off to a slow start this spring, but "now it is coming heavier and heavier, and there are not enough inspectors to inspect the number of loads crossing," Chris Ciruli of Ciruli Bros. LLC in Nogales told The Produce News on May 30. "So while you have a good grape market, you are not actually able to sell everything that is inbound because you can't get it through the inspection process. And it is getting worse and worse every day."
Inspectors are getting "further and further behind," Mr. Ciruli continued. "[The issue] is certainly foremost on a lot of grape growers' minds." Mexican grape producers have "just started hitting their stride right now" in terms of volume. Grape shipments out of Sonora will continue until about mid-July, but the big volume "is coming now."
Jim Pandol of Pandol Associates Marketing Inc. in Delano, CA, concurred. "The volume is really starting to come in a serious way now, so what was a bad situation will ... grow worse," he said. There is more volume coming in than in past years, and there are fewer inspectors to carry out the inspections mandated by marketing orders, so that is "holding up shipments" from the warehouses in Nogales to customers. "I am wondering if it really should be taking that long to get inspections done."
"We've got a nice product to sell," said Jerry Havel of Fresh Farms in Nogales. "It is [here] in volume ... and so far the quality has not been an issue for anybody, so that is good news." Inspectors are doing their best to keep up with the volume, but they have been unable to do so, he said.
Lee Frankel, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas in Nogales, explained that "a combination of things hit at the same time," contributing to the inspection delays. The net effect, he said, is that "product is crossing [that] is not able to be shipped out in a timely manner."
One death and two or three departures left the inspection team in Nogales shorthanded in a year when volume is up substantially over what it was in 2006, according to Mr. Frankel.
Adding to the burden is the fact that there is "a large number of people without much of a history of a presence in Nogales that are in the grape deal" this year who are "using warehouses where there is not very much product." The marketing order inspections are performed not at the border crossing but in the warehouses in Nogales, so that proliferation of warehouses with small volumes of gapes "is making inspectors spend a lot of time driving between inspections."
Another major factor contributing to the bottleneck is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture "did not make it enough of a priority" to hire the programmers needed to "work through their technical issues" to be able to implement available software that could cut inspection time by about half, said Mr. Frankel. The software, once in use, will significantly reduce the time needed for writing up the inspection results and "almost double the productivity for inspectors during grape season."
Without that software, inspectors are "forced to use paper" rather than electronic reports and to make computations with a calculator rather than entering the data in a computer, he said. "If the federal software was able to be used, instead of an inspector taking 56 minutes on average to make an inspection and write the report, it would be down to about 25 to 30 minutes."
Another problem is on the industry side. For the first time in several years, U.S. Customs & Border Protection has opened the port of entry on Sundays during peak shipping periods so that "more product is available to be ... staged for inspections," Mr. Frankel said. That should allow for "more efficient use" of the inspectors' time. But at one warehouse last Sunday [May 26], only one worker was on the job to stage product for inspection by the three inspectors who were present," so the inspectors were unable to work efficiently.
"There are things the industry can do to help the process," Mr. Frankel said. That is especially true with companies that are not members of the association and who "don't respect the communications of the association." They are "contributing significantly to the problem," he said.
"On the solution side," several things are being done to try to speed up the inspection process and minimize, if not eliminate, the bottleneck, Mr. Frankel noted. There will be six or seven federal inspectors "coming in to help out, to provide additional resources, to get the inspections done," he said. That will increase capacity by about 20 percent.
To help ease the pressure, watermelon shippers and Arizona officials have negotiated an agreement to temporarily suspend watermelon inspections, freeing up "four or five full-time-equivalent inspectors to work on grapes" during the peak grape volume period, he said.
While those measures will help, they may not be enough. "I hope there is a way to get a few more inspectors out here," Mr. Frankel said.
The industry could bring as many as 500,000 boxes of grapes a day across the border over the next few weeks, a flow that is similar to what was seen in 2005, Mr. Frankel said. "We were having problems when there were only 300,000 boxes a day crossing." The FPAA will continue working with Washington to try to "see if there is a way" to speed up the inspection process, he said.
So far, "USDA hasn't done the right job of making sure that there are enough inspectors available to make sure the products are inspected within, say, 24 to 48 hours after crossing," he said. "It is getting very close to a trade barrier in terms of inspection delays."
