Five years after the much-anticipated renovation and expansion of the Mariposa Land Port of Entry, members of the fresh produce industry in Nogales, AZ, are thrilled with the increased capacity, but yes, there’s still more to be done.
Although this may be a familiar refrain, there has been incremental change, and those whose livelihood depends on the port are more than willing to share their concerns and hopes for the future.
Jaime Chamberlain, president of Nogales-based Chamberlain Distributing, Inc. BB #:197076 and a member of the Greater Nogales/Santa Cruz Port Authority, says the reconfiguration of the port, which was built back in the 1970s, has certainly contributed to an ongoing boom in the fresh produce industry in the region.
“It’s been a game changer,” he says. “Before the reconfiguration, we were packed to the gills, maxed out. The port, which was built to handle 300 or 400 trucks a day, was handling 1,000.” Today, he estimates the number of truck crossings has grown to about 1,800 to 1,900 a day.
“The facilities are top notch compared to what we had,” says Fernando Sandoval, a licensed customs broker and president of the Nogales U.S. Customs Brokers Association. “Trucks that used to take three hours to cross the border are crossing in 40 minutes.”
When it comes to ways to improve the port and its performance, staffing continues to be a significant issue, but there are other ideas as well.
Getting Better
“Our area’s greatest economic driver is having adequate ports of entry that actually fulfill the functions of what a port is supposed to do,” Chamberlain says.
In order to do this and succeed on all levels, the Mariposa port still lacking here and there.
One of the more highly anticipated projects revolves around cold storage, which Chamberlain says will begin in the spring. The Mariposa port currently has a six-bay, semi-chilled area cooled to about 65 degrees, which of course, isn’t suitable for many highly perishable items.
The plan calls for four prefabricated cold units, costing an estimated $800,000 to $1 million, which will accommodate inspections of up to 30 truckloads a day.
With new cold rooms, Chamberlain says berries, which comprise one of the largest sectors in Mexican agriculture, could start coming through Mariposa along with papaya, avocados, pineapples, and other products. “We don’t want there to be any reason why they aren’t coming through here to get to the western part of the country,” he explains.
Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Nogales-based Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, BB #:144354 says the cold rooms will accommodate four to six trucks at a time, and will be especially valuable in expanding imports at the port during the summer months. He expects the project to be completed in about a year.
“Inspections will be done in a temperature-controlled room, so you won’t run the risk of finding out later that produce has degraded,” Jungmeyer says.
Bruce Bracker, a supervisor in Santa Cruz County, says the new cold rooms also will improve the task of mixing loads for purchasers.
“Mixing loads is a specialty of Nogales,” he explains. “It’s like grocery shopping on a large scale.”
This is multi-part feature adapted from the Nogales supplement in the January/February 2020 issue of Produce Blueprints.
