The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has issued a document inviting representatives of US state agencies to Vietnam to inspect the local honey production system.
The document, sent to the US Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Homeland Security, and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and the Embassy of Vietnam in the US, also gave the explanation for the existence of the fungicide residue, avoiding any suspicion that the export shipments contain Chinese honey.
The residue is much lower than that regulated by the EU and the Codex Alimentarius Commission which was created by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO), said the ministry.
It is the latest move of the Vietnamese state agency after the US Food and Drug Administration returned 600 tons of Vietnamese honey exported to the US in July-November last year after detecting fungicide Carbendazim residue.
The move is said to streamline the gridlock of Vietnamese honey exports to US, the biggest importer of the product, after the EU banned the exports due to quality control problems.
According to the ministry, Vietnam has promulgated regulations on the control and supervision of veterinary hygiene in production, to prevent transmission of foreign honey and ensure food safety for this product.
Before that, many experts have warned that Carbendazim contamination would probably be a trade barrier to the US market in 2012.
Fungicide Carbendazim is used on most crops grown in Vietnam, such as coffee, rubber, cotton and cashews, so it is very easy to spread to nectar when honey-bees extract it from the flowers of those plants.
It [the return of exported honey] has a negative impact on 35,000 Vietnamese bee farmers, Dinh Quyet Tam, head of Vietnam Beekeeper Association, said.
Last year, the country exported 27,000 tons of honey worth $2,400 a ton for $68.4 million.
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In July last year, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said it considered a ban on Vietnamese catfish products after finding samples with excess levels of the antibiotic enrofloxacin, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors. In early June last year, Japan said it found two shipments of shrimp from Vietnam containing enrofloxacin residue. Since June 10 it has increased the frequency of inspection of Vietnamese shrimp for enrofloxacin from 30 percent to 100 percent. German and Italian authorities also said four catfish shipments from Vietnam contained trifluralin residues and the chemical substance chlorpyriphos used to kill termites. |
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