The talks between the Rosselkhoznadzor and Deputy Head of the State Plant Quarantine Service of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environmental Protection of the Republic of Turkmenistan Azat Mammadov were held on March 26.
During the meeting the Russian party expressed concern about the detection of cases of importation from Turkmenistan to Russia of tomatoes infected with the tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) - an object for which the Rosselkhoznadzor has introduced a temporary quarantine phytosanitary measure.
The representatives of the Russian authority reminded that at the end of February they had sent an official letter to their Turkmen colleagues with notifications about the infection detection in the products and a request to conduct investigations on all the facts of the detections.
The Turkmen party reported that it had conducted surveys of greenhouse complexes in the country.
However, due to the lack of necessary equipment in the testing laboratories , the virus monitoring was conducted only visually based on the virus manifestations. In this regard, the Rosselkhoznadzor invited the competent authority of Turkmenistan to hold meetings between scientific specialists of the two countries, at which the Turkmen colleagues will be able to learn about the methods used in Russia to detect the causative agent of Solanaceae infection. The dates of these meetings will be discussed later.
The Rosselkhoznadzor also said that it is considering introducing restrictions on import of tomatoes from Turkmenistan if repeated cases of Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) are detected.
The Turkmen party assured that it has strengthened the surveillance of exported products. In particular, now the authority's specialists conduct on-site pre-shipment control of vegetables, at the address of their suppliers. ■
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