Ukrainian chicken exports may have become the latest target in Russia’s endless small-scale trade war with Ukraine that dates to the early 1990s.
On May 2, Ukraine’s state agency responsible for food safety – the Veterinary and Phytosanitary Service – suspended the export of chicken meat to the Customs Union countries of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, following the latter’s allegations of contamination.
Russia’s analogous food safety agency – Rosselkhoznadzor – told its Ukrainian counterpart in end-April it had found “banned and hazardous substances” in exported Ukrainian chicken meat.
In particular, Ukraine’s veterinary service said Russia had found salmonella and listeria in poultry produced or traded by Ukrainian companies Agromars, London-listed MHP, Tavr-Plus and Elitex. Later, on May 13, the Ukrainian agency lifted export restrictions for two smaller chicken producers, but left export bans in place for giants Agromars and MHP.
The problem is that the Ukrainian side hasn’t seen chicken meat test results conducted in Russia. According to Ukraine’s veterinary service press secretary Anatoliy Osadchyy, Ukraine only received an information message from Russia about the contamination and Ukraine decided to limit exports.
Ukraine’s veterinary service said it plans to investigate the alleged cases and make the results public.
The chicken producers say their products meet all safety requirements and contain no bacteria. Moreover, on May 15 – two weeks after the export ban – they still hadn’t received official test results, MHP press secretary Anastasia Sobotyuk said.
“We have not received any official complaints about the quality and safety of our products. Furthermore, if the products do not meet these requirements, they can’t leave the factory. The quality of our products is beyond doubt,” Agromars press secretary Viktoria Savchuk told the Kyiv Post.
Ukrainian producers didn’t recall their products from local retail chains, because only poultry intended for export to the Customs Union is under suspicion.
The poultry producers posited that contamination could have happened during transportation, thus exculpating them of blame.
“We expect the ban to be lifted in the near future, within a few weeks, because we are confident about the quality of our products,” stated Sobotyuk of MHP.
Halting exports to Russia was a viable solution, Union of Poultry Farmers board chairman Oleksandr Bakumenko believes. In this case the Ukrainian side can conduct its own tests, and if there is no contamination, Ukraine will send an official letter to Russia and can renew exports at the end of the next week. At this moment, Ukrainian companies have no significant losses, because they partly reoriented export to other countries. According to Bakumenko, Ukraine exports eggs to 50 countries and chicken meat to 25 countries, but received accusations only from Russia.
Experts suspect the affair is about more than food safety.
Ukrainian poultry comprises about 10 percent of Russia’s chicken meat imports, Ukrainian Agribusiness Club expert Alina Zharko said. But in the first two months of 2013, Russia imported six times more Ukrainian poultry than for the same period last year, according to official Ukrainian statistics.
“Logically, that with such methods the country (Russia) directly or indirectly desires to protect domestic producers,” Zharko suggested.
Should Ukrainian tests show negative results, Zharko said, the restrictions could be lifted.
In 2012, Ukraine exported 54,600 tons of poultry worth $111.7 million to the Customs Union of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, or nearly $10 million of poultry a month on average. In the first quarter of 2013, 57 percent of Ukrainian poultry exports went to the Customs Union. Reorientation to other markets, for example, to the European Union, wouldn’t be simple, Zharko said.
“If we have an opportunity to export our products to one of the biggest meat importers in the world, it won’t be smart to abandon this market,” she added.
Trade disputes between Russia and Ukraine are not uncommon, both of whom are World Trade Organization members. Last autumn Rosselkhoznadzor several times claimed to have found salmonella and listeria in Ukrainian poultry, but didn’t ban imports.
In early 2012, Russia banned the import of Ukrainian chesses for several months accusing producers of using cheap ingredients such as palm oil in place of milk fats. In September, Russia enacted a recycling fee on imported vehicles from Ukraine, adding $600 to $20,000 to the price of a Ukrainian vehicle sold to Russia.
And in late 2010, Russia set quotas on a number of Ukrainian goods, such as mineral fertilizers and railroad switches, and briefly limited the delivery of meat and dairy products.
Russia’s defense industry has also gradually decreased cooperation with Ukrainian suppliers and manufacturers over the years, including with Motor Sich and Antonov Design Bureau, both flagship companies.
Kyiv Post staff writer Kateryna Kapliuk can be reached at [email protected].
