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Now Entering Nogales – Part III: Trials and Tribulations

Moving forward and putting its stamp on the North American produce trade
MS_Now Entering Nogales

The Road Ahead
Despite the roadblocks and uncertainties they face, Nogales produce businesses—like others around the country—try to stay positive about the future of their industry.

“We’ve seen an upward trend in cross-border trade in Arizona,” Soberanes says, adding that Arizona-Mexico two-way trade increased by almost $1 billion between 2014 and 2015. “The value of the peso against the dollar may impact that growth, but one thing is for sure: Arizona’s political and business leadership is as strong as ever in advocating for stronger relations with Mexico and increased trade.”

FRESH FORUM
Last year, receivers were still experiencing some major border delays. Have traffic flow and inspection time improved?

Ruth Soberanes, Arizona-Mexico Commission
At our 2016 summit in June, representatives of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Mexican Customs (“Aduanas”) made an announcement that both services were implementing a pilot program to co-locate Aduanas personnel inside the Mariposa inspection compound. The program was launched in July: U.S. Customs personnel enter Mexico to conduct pre-inspections and pre-clear U.S.-bound conveyances. Once these conveyances cross the border and enter the U.S. inspection facilities, they are treated as low-risk shipments and expedited through the inspection process. This pilot program has drastically improved the flow of goods and border wait times for commercial vehicles by 85 percent.

Roberto Franzone, Arizona Sky Produce, Inc.
From what we experienced, we had fewer issues this year with delays.

Chris Ciruli, Ciruli Brothers, LLC
Arizona continues to hire border agents in Nogales. Although we would like to see more, the wait times have been improving every year since the port of entry was revamped.

Jerry Havel, Fresh Farms
With the new improvements to our Nogales port facilities, we expect no major border delays this season.

Lance Jungmeyer, Fresh Produce Association of the Americas
Delays have become much less frequent and much less time consuming. The Unified Cargo Processing program at the Mariposa Port of Entry is now open to fresh produce trucks that are part of C-TPAT [Customs-Trade Pact Against Terrorism] and FAST [Free and Secure Trade]. This is estimated to save up to six hours in crossing time per truck, for those that participate. We’re working to enroll more fresh produce firms in the C-TPAT program.

Edgar Duarte, Higueral Produce, Inc.
Overall yes; usually it gets bad during the holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. For example, I remember two years ago there was a food safety issue in Texas with jalapeños, so that slowed things down with trucks crossing through Nogales too. Sometimes we see the same thing with other products, like mangos. But overall, crossing times have been improving, especially since everyone is switching over to electronic documentation. There aren’t as many issues with paperwork being misplaced or lost.

Miguel Suarez, MAS Melons & Grapes, LLC
I hear this complaint all around, but it has not had a big effect on our daily business. Sometimes loads take longer to cross the border, but I think that’s normal during peak crossing periods.

“The future looks bright,” predicts Franzone. “The infrastructure is expanding, the season gets longer, and product lasts longer,” he enthuses. In addition, he believes “growing techniques and resistance to weather and pests seem to be improving every year” as well.

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