October 18, 2011

Russian grains fail to meet quality and safety standards

One third of Russia's grain have been found to be sub-standard, failing to meet its requirements of normative safety and quality standards, according to a research by specialists of Centre for Quality Assessment of grain.

They found that about 987.2 thousand tonnes of grain for the domestic market (32% of total volume) didn't meet requirements of normative safety and quality standards. This figure includes 983.4 thousand tonnes contaminated with pests.

The Centre for Quality Assessment is accountable to Rosselkhoznadzor (the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanityary Surveillance) which is supervised by the Ministry of Agriculture.

In August this year, experts checked 3.05 million tonnes of grain and its products. This included 362,200 tonnes of grain for the domestic market, 2657.7 thousand tonnes for export and 32.9 thousand tonnes of imported grain.

It was also found that 920.4 thousand tonnes of grain and its products allocated for export were contaminated with pests. According to Rosselkhoznadzor, Russia exported 2657.7 thousand tonnes of grain in July 2011 compared to 1925.7 thousand tonnes in July 2010. Experts noted that a considerable part of these exports were not tested properly.

Rosselkhoznadzor has proposed to the Russian government that they take over the role of monitoring the quality and safety of grain and its products. Since the abolity of the State Grain Inspection in 2004, the task of inspection and quality of the grain has fallen through the cracks.

Just recently Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that there is a possibility of reinstatement of the Inspection.