Brussels, Belgium
June 6, 2007
In Moscow, in mid-May,
representatives of Europe's leading crop protection companies
and the Russian government jointly announced the launch of a
campaign to counter the growing challenge of counterfeit
pesticides and illegal trade in pesticides. This national
campaign, among several other ongoing campaigns around Europe,
will be highlighted at tomorrow's multi-stakeholder event in
Brussels to discuss how to fight the growing problem of
counterfeit and illegal pesticides.
At the press conference in Moscow, representatives of the
leading companies and government officials discussed the
counterfeit problem. Issues highlighted included how to prevent
counterfeit and illegal goods from entering the market as well
as possible improvements to legislation.
In the last few years, there has been an increase of counterfeit
and illegal trade of pesticides throughout Europe, and the
Russian Federation is no exception. Conservative figures from
the Russian government put the level of counterfeiting at 10%
for 2006. This increase is confirmed by other European
government agencies, farmers and the crop protection producing
companies and current estimates show that 5-7% of pesticides are
illegal or counterfeit. Sergey Shurygin of the Russian Federal
Customs Service stated that: "The Russian Customs Service in
co-operation with the companies that provide the samples of the
original packaging has tracked down 154 cases of counterfeit
produce being brought into the country. In 2005 the same figure
grew to 390 cases and in 2006 to 1628 cases".
Regarding Russia, Vladimir Popovitch, a Deputy Director from
Rosselkhoznadzor, the Federal Agency for Veterinary and
Phytosanitary Supervision, said: "There is not a region where
counterfeit products have not been found. Tons of the
counterfeit products have recently been destroyed. For example,
in Omsk 28 tons of product were found and destroyed."
The crop protection companies will play a leading role in the
campaign in Russia and will use different techniques to counter
the problem. These include increasing farmers' awareness,
improving production control, reinforced co-operation with the
distribution chain, liaison with law-enforcement authorities and
the development and use of new anti-counterfeit technologies.
"Farms should play a leading role in the fight against
counterfeit product usage. One of the main methods of this fight
is the increase of the awareness and consciousness by the
professionals responsible for purchasing crop protection
products," said Vladimir Popovitch of Rosselkhoznadzor.
Leonid Tavrovsky of the Russian Union of Industrialists and
Entrepreneurs added: "Existing Russian legislation should be
made stricter so that suppliers and distributors of counterfeit
products will be held fully responsible for dealing with
products of this kind. Customs controls on imported crop
protection products should also be stricter. One of the measures
to be taken should be better control over the documents that
accompany all the imported goods".
According to the Anti-Counterfeit Campaign member companies:
"Our aim is the maximum reduction of the market of counterfeit
products. We will undertake all possible efforts to make
unscrupulous counterfeiters realise that counterfeiting our
products is a hard and dangerous business."
Counterfeiting and illegal pesticides threaten consumer health
and the environment, and also cause significant economic and
reputation damage to farmers, the food value chain, governments
and the crop protection industry.
The campaign manager of the ECPA Anti-Counterfeit project, Rocky
Rowe, stated: "The essence of this issue is the ability to keep
our food safe and protect consumers and the environment from
untested, unregulated and unapproved products which criminal
gangs are producing and trading. Authorities and others are
beginning to realise that they need to take this issue much more
seriously and dedicate concerted resources to the challenge."
The European Crop Protection
Association (ECPA) is the pan-European voice of the crop
protection industry. Its membership includes both national
associations and companies throughout Europe, including Central
and Eastern Europe. In addition to traditional crop protection
products such as herbicides, fungicides and insecticides, our
members also provide biopesticides and genetically modified
crops. This broad range of products provides many benefits and
is available for use in agriculture, horticulture, forestry and
gardening. ECPA represents an innovative industry that is
continually striving to provide science-based solutions to meet
the demand for increasingly higher environmental and health
standards. ECPA is a member of CropLife International. |
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