Food Safety Inspectorate comments on reports on ban on export of Armenian agricultural products to Russia

ArmInfo. The Food Safety  Inspectorate (FSI) responded to statements about the ban on export of  Armenian products to Russia, and also responded to concerns about the  sale of products banned from export on the local market. Earlier,  Garnik Danielyan, a member of the RA parliament from the Hayastan  faction, stated with reference to a group of exporters that the  Armenian side has been preventing the export of agricultural products  to Russia for a week now. 

According to him, the Armenian side is implementing enhanced  phytosanitary control, not allowing the export of fruits or  vegetables, which is why trucks are standing at the Bagratashen  checkpoint for several days, hundreds of tons of fruits and  vegetables are spoiled, and farmers, already mired in debt, find  themselves in a difficult situation. "Some exporters rightly state  that if the same agricultural products do not meet standards, then  why are they sold on the Armenian market, why do they remember about  laboratory testing only in the case of export to the foreign market,"  he noted.

The IOFPP called the information about the ban absolute  misinformation and untrue. The export of only those goods from  Armenia in which quarantine pests have been detected is prohibited,  their number is very small and a small percentage of vehicles stop at  the border point <for entire days>. The batches of agricultural  products in them are already spoiled and of poor quality for export  from an agricultural point of view, so parking on site cannot be the  cause of new damage, the department explained.

"The RA Food Safety Inspectorate, not weekly, but in general, in  accordance with its function, exercises control over the products of  phytosanitary control, fruits and vegetables exported from Armenia,  taking samples of each exported batch and sending it for laboratory  testing in order to determine contamination with harmful quarantine  organisms>, they emphasized.

It is reported that given the seasonal activity of exported goods,  the National Center for Veterinary, Sanitary and Phytosanitary  Laboratory Service of the IOBPP has recently been working on  Saturdays and Sundays in order to reduce the time of stopping  exported goods and conduct inspections as soon as possible.

"As for the concern that <if the same agricultural products do not  meet the standards, then why are they sold on the Armenian market?>,  we inform you that organisms harmful to quarantine are not dangerous  to human life and health, but may pose a threat to the agriculture of  the exporting country.

According to the same logic, agricultural products imported to  Armenia are also controlled in order to protect our country's  agriculture from plant diseases. In general, the IOBPP control in  this area has been tightened for the domestic market as well," the  statement reads. 

The department also noted that as a result of the IOBPP border  control, many batches of agricultural products receive a  phytosanitary certificate, and hundreds of vehicles not only cross  the Armenian border in a matter of hours, but also very quickly and  without obstacles cross the Georgian-Russian border point of Upper  Lars.

"As a result of such control, in the first half of 2024, the number  of phytosanitary discrepancies in goods exported from our country  decreased tenfold compared to 2023. As a result, there are no  difficulties with imports to Russia and other countries, which  directly contributed to the increase in the volume of exported  goods," the department noted.