KEY POINTS:
The discovery of a single moth larva in an apple has stopped New Zealand's $40 million apple export industry to Taiwan in its tracks.
Taiwanese media reported the discovery meant a shipment of 1029 boxes of apples had been stopped at the border and sent back to New Zealand for destruction.
Pipfruit New Zealand chief executive Peter Beaven told NZPA one codling moth larva, a pest in Taiwan, was discovered in an apple in Taiwan a couple of days ago.
Last night Biosecurity New Zealand received formal notification that the discovery had prompted the Taiwanese government to put a halt to all apple imports from New Zealand, Mr Beaven said.
Only exports which were already on the water or were loaded by Monday would be still accepted by the Taiwanese authorities, Mr Beaven said.
He could not confirm the Taiwanese reports the entire shipment would be sent back to New Zealand and destroyed.
New Zealand was about a third to a half of the way through the supply season to Taiwan, worth about $40 million annually, he said.
"It's a reasonably significant market for the New Zealand industry so yes it's going to cause some disruption to trade.
"We'll work pretty hard to try and get trade restored as quickly as possible."
The first step would be to trace back where the apple came from, including looking at the spray procedures in the orchard and fruit checking procedures in the pack house, to see how it might have slipped through.
"This is the first time there has ever been a codling moth interception from New Zealand in 20 years of trade."
While the ban was in place exporters would look to send to fruit to other markets, he said.
"It causes a pretty worrying time while we try to get this resolved and it's going to make life a little bit difficult for the industry and for the exporters until we can get a resolution of it.
"But it's not a disaster, it's not the end of the earth or anything."
The ban could have been avoided by a better trade agreement, he said.
The United States, which also exported apples to Taiwan, had an agreement with Taiwan that they could have two discoveries of codling moth and no suspension until they had a third, Mr Beaven said.
"We're on one strike... It's something we've been trying to address for some time to try to get better terms of trade.
"You look at it with the advantage of hindsight and you're sitting on a time bomb potentially and we've been sitting on that time bomb for years and years and years and finally it's happened."
There was no time frame for the ban, he said.
"We have complete the trace back procedure, we have to report back to the Taiwanese authorities and then we have to negotiate whatever terms and conditions and extra precautions we might need to put in place in order to get their agreement for trade to resume."
The trace back process, which Taiwanese officials had been invited to attend, should take two or three days, he said.
"We've got nothing to hide. We'd rather do this in an open process. We're not trying to conceal anything."
Codling moth larvae took hold by burrowing into the apple, he said.
"There are procedures to ensure that this doesn't happen but the system's not 100 per cent full-proof so every now and again you're going to get a system failure of some sort."
- NZPA
