Russia permits Scottish seed potato import

Rosselkhoznadzor (Russia’s phytosanitary watchdog) has permitted import of seed potatoes from Scotland. Rosselkhoznadzor officers have finished a lab inspection of samples of seed potatoes taken from a Scottish farm on February 25-28, 2015.
“There were no quarantine objects detected in taken samples after the lab inspection,” the statement says. As a result, Rosselkhoznadzor has permitted import of 160 tons of Valor seed potatoes for a Russian farm. Rosselkhoznadzor introduced a ban on import of seed potatoes from the EU on July 2013. Russia excluded seed potatoes from the banned list on August 20, 2014. However, seed potato shipments from the EU to the Russian Federation are permitted only after inspection of a batch of seed potatoes to be exported to Russia. For the time being, Rosselkhoznadzor has already permitted the import of certain batches of seed potatoes from Finland, Germany and the Netherlands. Rosselkhoznadzor has also considered recommencing the import of seed potatoes from Poland. (Source: fruit-inform.com)