FX.co ★ Russia’s chief sanitary official and three piglets

The African swine has become the reason of suspending regular pork supplies from Belarus. The Russian agricultural supervision authority (Rosselkhoznadzor) has issued the directive that bans importing pork into the Russian Federation. Referring to the report of the state agency’s press office, such restrictions are expected to take effect since this September. The ban term is not determined yet, the situation will depend on the veterinary investigation results. First and foremost, the prohibition concerns “the pork products that have not been exposed to heat processing by the temperature above 72˚C.” The thermal treatment kills germs of the African swine; only such a treatment can guarantee that the contagious bacteria are destroyed. The international practice shows that such restrictions are released only in case the disease is completely terminated on the area of the exporting country. It is worth noticing that some stock raising farms dealing with breeding pigs can obtain the official status of a stock welfare farm. Consequently, apart from the Russian permissive legislation directives, the ban can be exempted only in case if the Eurasian economic committee introduces the normative decree that handles the procedure of the stock welfare farm status determination. Russia’s chief sanitary official Gennady Onischenko admits the possibility of suspending Belorussian dairy articles together with meat produce. Citing the senior official, “only 72 samples proved to be safe out of 240 probes”. Numerous political experts link the current state of affairs and the sudden discovery of breaches in the quality of the exported goods with the recent detention in Minsk of Vladislav Baumgertner, the Chief executive officer of Uralkali.