The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday said that it plans to relax restrictions on four pesticides commonly used in Japan on strawberries.
The measure is being taken in the wake of Japanese strawberry imports being frequently stopped during customs inspections at the border for failing to meet the nation’s pesticide residue standards.
As a result, the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association asked the FDA to ease its ban on the four pesticides — acequinocyl, chlorfenapyr, flonicamid and mefentriflucon azole — when used on strawberries.
Photo: Wu Chun-feng, Taipei Times
The allowed chemical residual levels would be raised from zero to 1 part per million (ppm) for acequinocyl, to 0.5ppm for chlorfenapyr, to 0.7ppm for flonicamid and to 1.5ppm for mefentriflucon azole, the FDA said.
The drafted revisions to permissible residue levels of the pesticides on strawberries adopted by the agency were made public as an advanced notification on Wednesday, with public feedback to be gathered over a 60-day period.
The easing of the ban on the pesticide residues is expected to significantly clear obstacles for Japanese strawberry imports, which have been involved in multiple breaches since late last year.
On Jan. 9, the FDA imposed a one-month ban, its harshest penalty, on five Japanese strawberry suppliers after 10 out of 216 shipments, or 4.63 percent, failed border checks since November last year.
FDA Deputy Director-General Lin Chin-fu (林金富) told the Central News Agency that the decision was made after the agency evaluated the climate and environment conditions in Japan, and deemed the use of such chemicals to be proper.
In addition, requests to lift the level for permissible strawberry pesticides came not only from the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in 2020, but also German-owned chemical company BASF Taiwan in 2021 and the South Korean Mission in Taipei in 2022, Lin said.
Currently, the agency is collecting opinions, Lin said, adding that there is no schedule as to when the planned pesticide standard revisions would be enacted.
GREAT POWER COMPETITION: Beijing views its military cooperation with Russia as a means to push back against the joint power of the US and its allies, an expert said A recent Sino-Russian joint air patrol conducted over the waters off Alaska was designed to counter the US military in the Pacific and demonstrated improved interoperability between Beijing’s and Moscow’s forces, a national security expert said. National Defense University associate professor Chen Yu-chen (陳育正) made the comment in an article published on Wednesday on the Web site of the Journal of the Chinese Communist Studies Institute. China and Russia sent four strategic bombers to patrol the waters of the northern Pacific and Bering Strait near Alaska in late June, one month after the two nations sent a combined flotilla of four warships
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back