Overview

• Japan’s agriculture ministry published the rule on September 17, clearing the way for administrative steps to begin exports of fresh Mexican bell peppers.
• A bilateral Plan de trabajo issued in July 2025 sets the sanitary conditions for shipments from Mexico to Japan.
• Producers and packing houses must register with Senasica to be included on the official list submitted to Japanese sanitary authorities before exports can start.
• The opening caps 16 years of technical work by Senasica and CIAD researchers, led by Raymundo S. García Estrada, demonstrating non-susceptibility to tobacco blue mold.
• Japan’s longstanding restriction traced to a 1945 quarantine on hosts of the disease, and bell peppers now join Mexico’s established agri-exports to that market such as pork, beef, asparagus, grapes, strawberries, avocado, tomato and mango.