The regional minister of Agriculture, Livestock, and Fisheries, José Luis Aguirre, showed his support for the Valencian citrus sector, which is in the middle of the campaign, and said that "imports of oranges from Egypt and other third countries are being monitored."
He also said that he would demand the Ministry "strengthen inspections of imports to monitor strict compliance with current legislation regarding pests and phytosanitary residues."
In addition, he announced that they were going to "reinforce the official control plan of the Valencian Community's agri-food chain, increasing controls to verify compliance with correct origin labeling."
"We are defending our Community's citrus producers. We are monitoring the entry of merchandise and we are, once again, asking the Ministry to strengthen import inspections to reduce the number of alerts related to residues of banned pesticides or invasive pests in imported agri-food products," he stated.
"This government demands reciprocity from third countries and it will insist that the European Union defend the interests of local producers," Aguirre stressed.
"Working conditions in the EU and third countries are very different. In addition, there is a disparity of criteria regarding the authorization to use and apply certain phytosanitary products. Moreover, EU producers have to comply with environmental and food safety demands that third countries don't have to follow, which poses an enormous risk regarding the entry of pests and diseases that could jeopardize our agriculture," he said.
"There have been continuous interceptions of the black spot pest in shipments from South Africa, as well as from Egypt, and the false moth was recently detected in pomegranates from Morocco," he added.
"It's also worth noting that citrus fruits from Egypt are also putting the health of European consumers at great risk as there have been 93 cases of health alerts related to pesticide residues in these products, mainly due to chlorpyrifos and dimethoate, in the EU in the last 3 years."
Source: gva.es