SHAFFE – The Southern Hemisphere Association of Fresh Fruit Exporters has officially become a member of the Industry Advisory Group of the IPPC ePHyto project as of July 2021. The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) is an intergovernmental treaty signed by over 180 countries, aiming to protecting the world’s plant resources from the spread and introduction of pests, and promoting safe trade. Given the continued effort of SHAFFE to support the global onboarding to electronic phytosanitary certification and the importance given by its members to its implementation throughout the Covid—19 pandemic, the formalization of SHAFFE as official member of the Industry Advisory Group is an important recognition of these efforts. SHAFFE stands now together with many other international organisations supporting the continued modernization of trade related certification and strengthened resilience of the multilateral trading system through digitalisation.
SHAFFE has been increasing its endeavours throughout 2020/2021 to accelerate the onboarding to the IPPC ePhyto hub, as the solution allows the implementation of electronic phytosanitary certification under easy and trade-oriented conditions. Amongst the SHAFFE member countries nearly all countries have been onboarding to the solution, with Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa being at the frontline of implementing and rolling out the solution together with national solutions, additionally Australia, Brazil and Peru are currently increasing its efforts to connect to the hub-system and to test the exchange with their trading partners.
Accelerated through the challenging trading conditions under Covid-19 many countries have reacted to reduced airfreight and courier service activities with offering emergency solutions, to enable continued swift perishable trade. While many countries in the international community have accelerated their effort to onboard to the IPPC ePhyto solution, a range of alternative possibilities – such as transmission of pdf-attachments or even the development of own transmission and verification system currently complicate the overview of available transmission solutions. Additionally, diverging views on the safety of transmission and additional security verification further slow down the roll-out of electronic phytosanitary certificates globally.
SHAFFE is therefore focusing on 4 areas of facilitation including:
1.) Increased engagement in the Industry Advisory Group of the IPPC and the implementation of publicprivate collaboration
2) Broadening awareness within the fruit industry on the benefits of the solution through trade seminars and forums
- Seeking dialogue with key policy makers to bridge the knowledge gap between policy and business perspective on major challenges in the implementation process
- Supporting the development of easily accesible cost-benefit analysis to members and trade partners, in order to facilitate the onboarding to the system
According to SHAFFE President, Charif Christian Carvajal “SHAFFE is honoured to have formalised membership in the Industry Advisory Group of the IPPC ePhyto project and to continue support this very engaged community of international industry organisations, in raising awareness on the benefits of the ePhyto solution.”
