The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service will allow imports of fresh pitahaya fruit from Ecuador, subject to certain conditions, it said in a final rule (here). Eligible pitahaya fruit will have to be produced under a systems approach, including requirements for fruit fly trapping, pre-harvest inspections, approved production sites and packinghouse procedures designed to exclude quarantine pests, APHIS said. Imports will also have to be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate from the government of Ecuador. The final rule takes effect July 20.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is proposing to allow importation from Denmark of plants of the genus campanula in approved growing media, it said (here). If finalized, imports of the plants, commonly known as bellflowers, would have to follow measures generally applicable to all plants for planting authorized for importation in approved growing media, APHIS said. Comments are due Aug. 21.

The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is adding 22 taxa of plants that are quarantine pests, and 34 taxa of plants that are hosts of eight quarantine pests, to its lists of taxa of plants for planting for which importation is not authorized pending pest risk analysis (NAPPRA), it said (here). Effective June 19, importation of these NAPPRA plants is prohibited pending completion of a pest risk analysis, which must be requested, though imports of certain plants from Canada is exempt if Canada has a significant trade history with the U.S. for a particular plant.

The Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation on June 15 announced Special Import Quota #8 for upland cotton will be established on June 22, allowing importation of 13,890,026 kilograms (63,796 bales) of upland cotton (here). It will apply to upland cotton purchased not later than Sept. 19, 2017, and entered into the U.S. by Dec. 18, 2017. The quota is equivalent to one week's consumption of cotton by domestic mills at the seasonally adjusted average rate for the period January 2017 through March 2017, the most recent three months for which data is available.

The Foreign Agricultural Service published a list (here) of updated quantity trigger levels and applicable periods for products that may be subject to additional import duties under the safeguard provisions of the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture.

The Agricultural Marketing Service is proposing changes to its U.S. Standards for Grades for Carcass Beef, it said (here). The agency’s proposed rule “would allow dentition and documentation of actual age as additional methods of classifying maturity of carcasses presented to [the U.S. Department of Agriculture] for official quality grading,” it said. “Currently, the standards include only skeletal and muscular evidence as a determination of classifying maturity of carcasses for the purposes of official USDA quality grading,” AMS said. Comments are due Aug. 18.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service is proposing to allow imports of Chinese poultry products from birds slaughtered in China, it said (here). If finalized, slaughtered poultry processed in certified Chinese establishments would be eligible for export to the U.S., subject to all other applicable requirements and re-inspection at the U.S. port of entry, FSIS said. As it currently stands, eligible products would be limited to cooked poultry due to China’s disease status, it said. The U.S. recently agreed to publish the proposed rule as part of the U.S.-China Economic Cooperation 100-Day Plan (see 1705120003). Comments on the proposed rule are due Aug. 15.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture released a series of documents on exporting beef to China following a recent agreement to allow for such trade (see 1705120003). The Food Safety and Inspection Service posted an updated list of export requirements that reflects the ability to sell beef to China (here). Among other updates, FSIS said "China will not accept USDA's Electronic Trade Document Exchange (eTDE) system to receive certificates prior to arrival of the product in China" and FSIS "has developed a pre-notification system that will serve as a stopgap measure until the PHIS foreign country login component is launched." The Agricultural Marketing Service also provided a new guidance on the bovine export verification program (here), specific product requirements for marketing U.S. beef to China (here) and frequently asked questions about the program (here).

The Department of Agriculture's Commodity Credit Corporation on June 8 announced Special Import Quota #7 for upland cotton will be established on June 15, allowing importation of 13,890,026 kilograms (63,796 bales) of upland cotton (here). It will apply to upland cotton purchased not later than Sept. 12, 2017, and entered into the U.S. by Dec. 11, 2017. The quota is equivalent to one week's consumption of cotton by domestic mills at the seasonally adjusted average rate for the period January 2017 through March 2017, the most recent three months for which data is available.

The Grain Inspection, Packers and Stockyards Administration is suspending for another year the fee it charges for supervision of official inspection and weighing services of domestic grain and land carriers to Canada and Mexico performed by delegated states or designated agencies, it said (here). GIPSA said it is suspending the fee from July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018, because its operating reserve continues to exceed the legal maximum of six months of reserve funding for supervision services by a large margin. The fee has been suspended since July 1, 2016 (see 1606270018).