The agri-food products from Ukraine must be subject to sanitary-veterinary controls in customs in order not to endanger the health of the population by consuming products obtained from raw materials that do not comply with the production standards required of producers in the European Union, the representatives of the Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation say in a letter addressed to the authorities, according to Agerpres.

„We must all be aware that the products that remain in Romania through this transit corridor were not produced in the same quality standards imposed by the European Union on European farmers, being plant protection products banned in the EU, accepted limits for pesticide residues different from the EU, with the permission to cultivate genetically modified organisms, etc.,” the document states.

According to the quoted source, as an adverse effect of this transit corridor, Romanian farmers were left with important stocks of grain, with the prices received for Romanian goods being greatly reduced due to the availability of goods from Ukraine, and Romania from being a net exporter turned into a net importer.

„We cannot be sustainable if we sell at a loss, below production costs,” say the representatives of the Alliance for Agriculture.

According to the organization, if the European Commission decided solidarity and humanitarian support for Ukraine, the same Commission must also take care of the farmers in the East, who are in a difficult situation.

At the same time, the representatives of the alliance request the monitoring, counting and control of food safety for agricultural and agri-food products that are in „transit” or imported from Ukraine, the simplification of the application of the safeguard clause in case it distorts the market as at present and to take the necessary measures for to comply with the same conditions/restrictions as EU products, because they produce contamination, pest infestations, diseases that create very big problems in the long term.

According to the Alliance for Agriculture and Cooperation, following the European Commission’s proposal to extend the elimination of customs tariffs for the transit and import of agricultural and agri-food products from Ukraine, farmers and agricultural cooperatives in Romania are facing major problems.

Thus, starting from March 2022, the high costs for logistics/distribution services, the absence of logistic availability, the large price reductions for Ukrainian goods that literally suffocate the Romanian market have seriously affected the market of local products and implicitly the revenues of the agri-food sector in Romania.

„Until now, the costs of this corridor of solidarity have not been felt equitably between the member states, the most affected being the states with a common border,” the signatories of the letter claim.

In the case of Romania, although there are quality standards established at the European level and implicitly high production costs, farmers do not have access to the benefits of the single European market, in the absence of a logistic infrastructure that allows this.

Agerpres