Seattle's Fruit Inspection Racket: Dumping California Produce to Protect Local Markets
A dispute over British Columbia's fruit inspection leads The Ranch to admit that Puget Sound inspectors have used the law to condemn California and Oregon fruit, easing market congestion and raising questions about regulatory abuse.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The New Westminster Columbian has taken exception to a charge by the San Francisco Chronicle that British Columbia's fruit inspection is designed to exclude American fruit. The Chronicle argued that the codling moth is impossible to eradicate and that condemning entire shipments for a few worms is merely a pretext to prohibit importation.
The Ranch agrees with the Chronicle. We believe fruit inspection, insofar as pest exclusion goes, is a farce and a failure. In Washington state, we have tried the same approach: legislative enactments, horticultural commissioners, and fruit inspectors on every corner, yet the pests remain. The valiant fight of Prof. W. H. Brown, inspector for Seattle and King County, was well-publicized but ultimately futile.
At the ports of Puget Sound, the inspection law has found a more profitable use: relieving market congestion. Just call the inspector's attention to 'infected' fruit from California and Oregon, and off it goes to the dump. Our law is so sweeping that an inspector can condemn a carload if he finds one or two stray worms. The Ranch knows that some California fruit has gone that way—the editor has seen the inspector do it.
“At the ports of Puget Sound the only use to which the inspection law can be profitably put is to relieve our markets in times of congestion. Just call the inspector's attention to the infected fruit from California and Oregon; and off it goes to the dump.”
In 1902, fruit inspection was weaponized to shield local growers from competition. Then as now, inspection regimes and trade barriers can be used to protect entrenched interests, a debate that echoes in modern agricultural policy and trade disputes.
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