MANILA, Philippines -- Most security guards in the Philippines check visitors for guns or explosives. But on the small island of Guimaras, they are on high alert against a particular tropical fruit. "Mango, ma'am?" queries a port guard, flanked by a sign showing the yellow fruit marked with an X.
It's all part of Filipino scientist Hernani Golez's crusade to increase Philippine mango exports to the U.S. It took Mr. Golez 14 years to persuade the U.S. in 2001 to certify that the central Philippines island of Guimaras is free of a winged brown pest called the mango-pulp weevil and to permit mangoes from Guimaras to enter the U.S.
Today, Guimaras remains the only place in this mango-rich archipelago to have that certification, and authorities are vigilant against visitors bringing in possibly contaminated mangoes from other provinces. While the mango-pulp weevil was discovered on the remote island of Palawan in 1987, none of the country's top 10 mango-producing provinces (Guimaras is No. 19) have been found to contain the insect. Yet because of regulatory hurdles, it could take another five years to certify other islands as weevil-free and able to export to the U.S.
Scientist Hernani Golez has long crusaded to export Philippine mangoes to the U.S., which currently buys them primarily from Latin America.
Mr. Golez's odyssey illustrates developing countries' frustrations with complex food-safety rules that are often perceived as unfair barriers to agricultural trade. Importing countries say such rules are necessary to protect their consumers from disease and their homegrown produce from infestation. The World Trade Organization requires general standards of food safety and permits requirements that go beyond that as long as they adhere to scientific principles. There are also technologies such as irradiation, or zapping food with electron beams, which promise to destroy pests at reasonable cost.
But irradiation facilities take money to build and years to test. Meantime, developing countries can find themselves tangled in red tape and cut off from certain markets because of limited outbreaks.
Steve Suppan, director of research at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis think tank, says he has noticed increasing complaints from developing countries that exports from an entire country are banned because of a pollutant in one region or one particular export center. Mr. Suppan follows the Codex Alimentarius Commission -- the WTO and United Nations-recognized body responsible for compiling international food standards and guidelines -- and notes that while Codex continues to develop new regulations, little aid is given to developing countries to help them implement these policies. "It's typical contradictory trade policy rhetoric," he says.
Luis Lorenzo, the Philippines' agriculture secretary, says that he shared his mango gripes with President Bush in recent bilateral talks. "If we cannot even sell our mangoes to the U.S. from all over the Philippines, how do you expect us to believe that the World Trade Organization really works?" Mr. Lorenzo says.
The Philippines produced one million tons of mangoes last year, but exported only about 10%. Last year the U.S. imported just $162,000 worth of Philippine mangoes. By comparison, it imported $90 million worth of mangoes from Mexico and $28 million from Brazil, where the mango-pulp weevil has never been detected. A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokeswoman notes that even mangoes from Hawaii have to be irradiated for fruit flies before they can be sold in the continental U.S.
Although mangoes have always ranked far behind bananas and pineapples in Philippine export volumes, what drove Mr. Golez was the realization that they could be a higher value-added crop, produced mainly by small farmers instead of multinational corporations. Today, roughly 2.5 million Philippine farmers grow mangoes, but most are struggling to get by.
Mr. Golez and a team of Philippine scientists are working on improving varieties and refining methods to delay ripening. That would allow mangoes to be shipped by sea rather than air-freighted, thus making the fruit more cost competitive.
But Mr. Golez's efforts to meet U.S. standards have been drawn out. The first big hurdle came in 1987, when a survey of 33 mango-producing provinces discovered evidence of mango-pulp weevils on Palawan, 300 miles southwest of Manila. Mr. Golez agreed to U.S. demands for a quarantine there while seeking alternate sources of mangoes. Guimaras, surrounded by water, was a natural place to start. It took until 1993 for the U.S. to declare Guimaras weevil-free after a series of fruit samples turned up negative.
That wasn't the end. Mr. Golez says the Philippines then had to take steps to enforce the quarantine, including training the quarantine deputies. Then in 1998, the U.S. informed him of some additional requirements. The Philippines had to supply proof that it could get rid of fruit flies using a vapor-steam treatment. Mr. Golez had to write the proposal and raise money for another round of tests. This took two years. Then came another requirement: Twice a month, selected mangoes from all over Guimaras island had to be checked for mango-pulp weevils, to make sure they hadn't crept in despite the quarantine. Finally in 2001 the U.S. agreed to import mangoes from Guimaras.
In the long run, Mr. Golez hopes to surmount these hurdles for other Philippine provinces -- possibly with U.S. money. Manila has applied for a multimillion dollar grant under the U.S. "Food for Peace" program to pursue testing of irradiation.
"They have a natural competitive advantage in that they have an excellent quality fruit here. They are making good strides, focusing on what needs to be done," says David Miller, agricultural counselor at the U.S. embassy in Manila.
---- Amy Chozick in New York contributed to this article.
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