Phytosanitary protocols and constraints relating to apple exports - comparison of three major exporting countries: France, Italy and Chile

The Sustain'Apple project deals with phytosanitary regulations in international trade and the institutional devices to comply with those regulations. Phytosanitary regulations are issued by new destination countries (mostly in Asia and North and South America) to avoid importing and disseminating quarantine organisms (in particular pests) and limit the economic effects of regulated non-quarantine organisms. Our report focuses on public and private devices which formulate, negotiate and implement the phytosanitary protocols that exporting countries must comply with, to get access to targeted markets. By comparing France with Italy and Chile, we have been able to identify strengths and weaknesses of the French system. The interest for such a comparison arouses from the two following questions : first how can we explain the contrasted market positioning between France and Italy on one hand and Chile on the other hand, Chile having by far the largest market share in destinations with phytosanitary constraints; second, how can we explain low institutional efficacy in preparing and negotiating phytosanitary protocols as revealed by professional leaders who regret lack of information from and weak cooperation with plant protection services. The institutional devices comparison has been conducted after having positioned the markets of the three countries and identified, for each of them, issues of quarantine pests and phytosanitary constraints imposed by main customer countries.