Benjamin Taft, California Date Administrative Committee.

MR. TAFT: Good afternoon. I would first like to thank the panel and the others responsible for this opportunity to present a concern of the California Date industry. My comments will be brief and limited to the Coachella Valley.

My name is Ben Taft and I'm a grower member of the California Date Administrative Committee, which is our federal marketing order. Together with a state order, known as the Date Commission, we coordinate USDA inspections, regulate packaging, generically promote our products, perform research and development and provide industry statistics to packers and growers along with a host of other responsibilities.

Included in my presentation package is some basic information about our industry and the letter from the USDA FAS detailing one of many scenarios in our predicament. Time does not permit me to highlight or go into great detail, so it has been included for the public record.

Date Palms were planted in the Coachella Valley in the 1890s. Well, excuse me, Date Palms were planted in the Coachella Valley of California, which is approximately two hours east of Los Angeles in the early 1890s. And now, plantings cover over 6,500 plus acres. These acres produce over 40 million pounds of our four primary varieties, which are the Deglet-Noor, the Medjool, the Barhi and the Zahidi. The Coachella Valley Date industry maintains a rather steady employment base of around 2,500 people.

Incredibly, the 40 million pounds I mentioned earlier is less than 15 percent of the world Date production. California and Arizona produced Dates are the best looking and best tasting in the world. And we need to keep in mind that in the world market, we are not volume producers, we are quality based producers and shippers.

And the single issue that brings me before you this afternoon is our desire to have the playing field leveled in the EU, I mean we've heard that from other people today, for all Date producing companies that participate in the EU marketplace. Our California produced Dates are assessed an import duty upon arrival into the EU. Now, this is not only on the Dates, but it is on the Dates and the cost of the freight to get the Dates to the EU.

Tariff amounts vary by packaging and shippers can expect duties anywhere from one cent to six cents per kilo. In some scenarios, it's 15 percent. It just varies on packaging and whether it comes with pits, comes without pits and a range of other issues.

To many here today in this industry, this is not unusual. We deal with tariffs, but the one thing that is unique to the Date industry is that our competition of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco are shipping into the EU duty-free, and some times they are receiving freight and transportation allowances.

It does not matter what you ship, Dates or silicon wafers, when your competition is given a significant advantage in such a critical marketplace, you will lose. And you can also be sure that benefits derived from such an advantage in one market can be used to market aggressively in other regions of the world.

Please keep in mind, we are a small market and we are unable and unwilling to execute predatory marketing strategies with our limited volume. What we do desire is the ability to provide a quality product at a price people can afford.

And just, and I know my time is wrapping up, but to let you know of how big the EU marketplace is to the Date industry. We used to average 12 million pounds a year. Our high-water mark was 20 million pounds. We now average around one million pounds a year. And as a grower, I can tell you that that is not a very pleasant trend. That's not a very pleasant trend. And the ramifications on industry are, as you can imagine, crippling.

The age of globalization is here and we must let the marketplace decide. We grow the safest, cleanest crop in the world. The issue is not pest exclusion and it's not phytosanitary, the issue is political. These listening sessions are the only real chance we have for change and we need to voice -- we need your voice on these issues to make the change possible. The EU is a large and pivotal marketplace, and this region of the world is home to a significant number of Date consumers. We do not want any special privileges. We just want the opportunity to have a chance to participate on a level playing field.

I welcome you all to come out and visit the desert. It's a wonderful time of year to come visit.

(Laughter.)

MR. TAFT: And we appreciate --

CO-MODERATOR JONES: So is December.

MR. TAFT: We appreciate the time and anything that you can do to help us out in our here aforementioned problem would be appreciated.

Thank you.