Last week, the head of Russia's Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service Rosselkhoznadzor, Sergei Dankvert, stated that Russia will ban tomato and pepper imports from Morocco. The official said that Russia ‘has shown everyone that they must pay attention to the risks when exporting certain products’. “We are considering the possibility of introducing a ban on the supply of tomatoes from Morocco,” Dankvert announced.
On October 30, Rosselkhoznadzor already banned the import of Moroccan tomatoes re-exported from the Netherlands, Belgium and France due to the discovery of cases affected by the Pepino Mosaic Virus (PepMV), more often called Mosaic or Pepino.
“We are now planning to hold a video conference and inform our Moroccan colleagues that we can ban the supply of their products if they do not start to work more effectively with the tomato viruses,” the official said. “The virus infects all crops of tomatoes, peppers and potatoes, so we are constantly working with Morocco.”
Source: en.yabiladi.com