The meeting of the acting Minister of Ukraine Olga Trofimtseva, chief phytosanitary inspector of Ukraine Andriy Chelombitko, director of the Department of food safety and quality of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy Nikolai Moroz with a delegation of the Ukrainian Association of Potato Producers.

They talked about the smuggling of Russian potatoes into Ukraine by re-export through Belarus, which is part of the EAEU (Customs Union). This was reported by the press service of the association.

According to the information of the director of LLC Agrico Ukraine Nikolay Gordiychuk, under the guise of marketable potatoes, seed is also imported into Ukraine, which is almost not checked at the border. Planted in the ground low-quality, uncertified Russian potatoes will lead to the appearance on the Ukrainian fields of all known and unknown to us quarantine organisms.

Near the Belarusian border from trucks and refs, Russian potatoes are loaded into minibuses that enter the territory of Ukraine. Seed potatoes re-exported from Russia under the guise of a common commodity are already sold on the domestic market of Ukraine.

In the spring he will be landed on the sites of citizens. The spatial isolation around professional farms, which is the key to growing quality and safe products, will have to be forgotten, the association said.

During the meeting, it was agreed that the Ministry of Agrarian Policy will study the possibility of introducing mirror measures to the EAEU countries, in particular, deliveries to Ukraine of potatoes grown in areas free from quarantine organisms.

Gosprodpotrebsluzhba will strengthen control in the domestic market. It will be enough for any person to provide information to the local department of the service that he has witnessed the sale of potatoes of foreign origin, which can be really used for planting. This is enough to bring smugglers to administrative responsibility.