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The talks took place upon the initiative of the Canadian party on April 2, 2015 in Moscow and were devoted to the discussion of vital issues related to cooperation between the countries in veterinary surveillance and assurance of biological safety of mutually delivered animal products.
The temporary restrictions imposed by the Rosselkhoznadzor on November 14, 2014 on export of pork and pork products from Canada to Russia were included into the agenda of the talks. The reason to take such strict measures was a stable increase in the number of cases when harmful and dangerous substances including growth promoter – ractopamine, banned in the CU, were detected in Canadian products in the course of the monitoring laboratory tests. Notwithstanding the ractopamine-free program developed in Canada for the products exported to the CU territory 43 detections of banned substances were registered by the Rosselkhoznadzor in 2014 and eight out of them were ractopamine detections. At the same time with the letter received by the Rosselkhoznadzor in six months after the last ractopamine detection the CFIA informed the Russian party that it had investigated the ractopamine detection cases and provided the laboratory tests of products destined for export to Russia in which no positives for banned substances had been found. To solve this issue it is necessary to establish a working group of technical experts which will study Russian and Canadian methodologies of food testing for harmful substances and will develop a program for compliance of products imported from Canada with the Russian and CU requirements.
Another topic for discussion was the imposition of restrictions on import of live pigs from Canada due to the wide spread of porcine epidemic diarrhea in the country. The Russian service is ready to consider the possibility of resuming the export of live pigs from the Canadian territories free from PED to the Russian Federation if all biosafety requirements are met.
Yevgeny Nepoklonov noted that the Rosselkhoznadzor will provide the CFIA with the additional information that will enable to guarantee the safety of products due to ASF outbreaks in the RF. It was stressed that in order to control ASF a set of effective measures was developed which is highly estimated by the OIE. To mitigate risks of ASF occurrence and spread the wild boar population in risk zones is culled; several electronic systems enabling to trace live animals and animal products were developed and compartmentalization of pig farms was introduced.
Thursday April 2, 2015/ Rosselkhoznadzor/ Russia.
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