CHINA RECEIVES FIRST CARGO OF BRAZILIAN MELONS

This Friday, September 18, about three and a half tons of ‘Christmas melon’ (or ‘toadskin melon’), from Mossoró, RN arrived at Shanghai airport in China. The cargo was the first to arrive after the bilateral agreement signed in November 2019 between the two countries that opened the Chinese market to Brazilian melons.

In January of this year, technicians from the General Administration of China Customs (GACC), the agency responsible for plant and animal health, visited melon farms in the largest fruit-producing states, Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará, to inspect the melon farms in the areas of the country that are free of fruit flies.

After the inspection, the agency authorized the export of Brazilian melon by the company Bollo Brasil. According to the Brazilian Association of Fruit and Derivative Export Producers (ABRAFRUTAS), this is the first time that fresh fruit is officially exported to China, and others are already under negotiation.

For the first shipment to be carried out, the melon had to be inspected by the Ministry of Agriculture directly on the farm itself. The use of the Map seal on the fruit packaging is one of the measures taken to confirm that the entire process was done in-house and with the inspection authorized by the Chinese government.

China is a major melon-consuming country. In 2017, it consumed approximately 17 million tons, almost half of world production.  In 2019, Brazil exported melon to several countries, more than 251,000 tons. The expectation now is that this number will double if it gains at least 1% of the Chinese market. One of the advantages of Brazil is that the harvest coincides with the off-season in China.

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