Russia to ban all Polish meat products amid swine fever fears

photo - sxc.hu

"We have been preparing a letter which informs that Russia will join measures earlier taken by Belarus [...] in respect to restrictions of the imports of all kinds of meat products from Poland and Lithuania," the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency reports a spokesman from Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary Supervision as saying on Wednesday.

The ban will remain in force until inspections of Polish and Lithuanian meat production enterprises have been carried out, the statement says, following what the Russian news agency reports were "unconstructive" talks between Poland, Lithuania and Russia at the end of last month.

Poland's Minister of Agriculture Marek Sawicki has told Polish Radio however that he has received no new documents relating to a meat ban from Russia.

The ban, if it goes ahead, will follow a block of all EU pork products to Russia set on 29 January after four dead wild boars were found to have been carrying the virus on the Polish-Lithuanian border.

No cases of African Swine Fever have been found in the Polish agricultural herd, however.

Russia is the destination for around one quarter of EU pork product exports, with the main exporters being Germany, Spain, Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Poland.

Wieslaw Rozanski, chairman of the Union of Producers and Employers of the Meat Industry (UPEMI), told Polish Radio in February that many Polish farmers faced possible financial ruin if the ban continued.

“Finding another market will not be easy – actually it is impossible," he said. (pg)