Irradiated from India

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved the importation of irradiated mangoes from India. The March 12 Federal Register final rule said the mangoes must be treated with a minimum required dose of 400 gray of irradiation. Additional safeguarding measures for a couple irradiation resistant fungi include a broad spectrum post harvest fungicide dip and orchard inspections.
From the final rule comes this analysis;

In order to compete with other countries importing mangoes into the United States, India expects to first target niche and gourmet markets by promoting the mangoes as premium quality fruit. Producers indicated to the APHIS site visit team that initially, the mangoes are expected to be sold through premium catalog sales and/or in specialty and ethnic grocers, after which the mangoes would then be sold in the regular retail sector. Additionally, we expect that India would initially target those geographic areas and markets with high concentrations of Asian and South-Asian persons. According to the United States Census in 2000, 11.9 million people, or 4.2 percent of the population, identified themselves as Asian. The 10 states with the largest Asian demographic in 2000 were California, New York, Hawaii, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois, Washington, Florida, Virginia, and Massachusetts, which combined represent 75 percent of the Asian population in the United States. Regionally, the West and the Northeast have the largest concentrations of Asians. Asian Indians represented the third largest specified Asian group, with a total of 1.9 million people who reported Asian Indian alone or in combination with at least one other race or Asian group. Although this final rule will allow imports of all mango varieties, according to comments received on the proposed rule, producers in India are currently interested in exporting six varieties of mangoes to the United States--`Kesar,' `Alfonse,' Banganpalli,' `Lagra,' `Dussehry,' and `Neelam'--from four States: Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh. Based on a site visit conducted by APHIS officials, we believe the majority of exports would originate from Gujarat and Maharashtra, where there are two and six production areas, respectively, producing `Kesar' and `Alfonse' varieties. Comments received on the proposed rule indicate that the harvest season in India stretches from March to July. According to the request from the Government of India, the quantity of mangoes exported to the United States would be about 100 sea containers per year. With India being the world leader in mango production, and a typical export packinghouse having a shipping capacity of 40-50 metric tons (over 88,000 lbs.) per day for 45-50 days of the harvest season, the amount imported into the United States would likely only be limited by U.S. market forces.