5 May 2020
Purpose
This Industry Advice Notice (IAN) is to advise industry of the in-transit cold treatment (ITCT) certification requirements for the export of citrus to the USA in 2020.
Summary of changes and key points
- ITCT must start in Australia and finish prior to arrival in the USA.
- Mixed consignments are not permitted for ITCT to the USA. Only the same species of fruit may be treated together.
- Supervision of citrus ITCT to the USA must only be conducted by Authorised Officers (AOs) which have been approved by the USDA. If you are unsure if you have been approved by the USDA please contact Plant Export Training.
Plant export inspection AO responsibilities
- AOs are responsible for supervising and verifying that all steps of the ITCT process are correctly applied in accordance with the Work Instruction: Initiating an in-transit cold treatment for plant exports.
- AOs must record the ITCT calibration in the Plant Export Management System (PEMS), where the system has also been used to record the commodity inspection.
Exporter responsibilities
Exporters must meet the following documentation requirements:
- Exporters must submit RFP authorisation requests for processing prior to the USDA PPQ 556 processing request being received.
- Exporters must notify the Assessment Services Group (ASG) Plant Exports National Documentation Hub (NDH) via email, that their calibration certificate and supporting documentation are available for verification in PEMS at the time of requesting their RFP authorisation.
- If the ITCT has not been captured in PEMS, the exporter must submit a completed certificate of loading and calibration record for an in-transit cold treatment along with supporting documentation to the via email at the time of requesting their RFP authorisation.
- Inspections for citrus ITCT exports to the USA should not be booked on Fridays when the vessel is leaving that weekend as this leaves insufficient time for processing.
Shipping company responsibilities
Shipping companies must meet the following documentation requirements:
- Submit USDA PPQ 556 processing requests (including container numbers) at least the day before completion is required. For example, if completion is required by Friday or on the weekend, then the USDA PPQ 556 processing request should be submitted by COB Thursday of that week.
- Email a weekly ‘pre-alert/vessel summary report’ by close of business each Thursday, to the ASG (NDH). This summary report must include the estimated date of vessel arrival, container details.
- Emails to the ASG (NDH) must state in the subject line, one of the following options:
- For RFP authorisation, include “Authorisation RFP [RFP number] – Horticulture [Date of Departure]; Sea”, in the email subject line.
- For shipping notification Pre-Alert, include “USDA 556 ITCT – [Vessel name] – Pre-Alert”, in the email subject line.
- For shipping notifications USDA PPQ 556 ITCT Processing Request, include “USDA 556 ITCT – [Vessel name]”, in the email subject line.
- For consignment issues, include “USDA 556 ITCT– [RFP number, Container number] – Consignment Issue”, in the email subject line.
Background
All citrus exported to the USA must comply with the standards stipulated in the workplan agreements between Australia and the USA.
The citrus workplan is available in the ‘Documents’ section of the Manual of Importing Country Requirements (MICoR). To access these documents, you must be a registered MICoR Plants user.
Contact information
If you have any questions regarding consignments shipped to the USA under ITCT please email the ASG (NDH) and include “USA 556 ITCT” in the subject line.
If you have any questions regarding this IAN please email Horticulture Exports.
David Ironside
Assistant Secretary
Plant Export Operations Branch