MOSCOW - Russian agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor will remove German companies whose products may contain the dangerous carcinogen aflatoxin B1 from its list of suppliers to Russia.
The watchdog said it was very concerned about “aflatoxins in the German food chain.” “The reason for the contaminated products, especially milk, was the supply to German farms of feed containing the dangerous carcinogen aflatoxin B1,” it said in a press release. “In Lower Saxony alone the feed reached 4,467 farms, including 968 dairy farms.” As a result the animals received feed containing aflatoxin with 30 times the permitted level.
Rosselkhoznadzor asked the Germany Agriculture Ministry for detailed information on the investigation of the issue with a list of all companies affected. If the list contains companies with the right to import to Russia, they will be excluded from the list of suppliers.
“Rosselkhoznadzor believes aflatoxins in the food chain, as well as the recent detection of falsified products containing horsemeat and other protein products from unknown sources, provides new evidence of the poor product tracking system in Germany and in the European Union as a whole,” the release said.
