The Coordinator of Farmers and Ranchers Organizations (COAG) of Andalusia demands an immediate halt to strawberry and other fresh product imports from Morocco. The organization makes this demand based on the repeated health alerts in recent weeks, especially the one on Monday, March 4, in which the RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) alerted that strawberries from Morocco with the hepatitis A virus had entered the Spanish market, which poses a serious health risk.
In the last year, the RASFF has issued 47 health alerts for imports from Morocco, 30 of which were notified by Spain. Many of these alerts involve strawberry imports from Morocco. On February 14, for example, authorities issued an alert after finding the GII norovirus, a potentially serious risk, in a shipment of strawberries from Morocco.
It should be noted that only 1% to 5% of the agri-food products that are imported are analyzed randomly and, what's worse, the merchandise is released to the market before authorities have the analysis results, so consumers acquire those contaminated products without knowing it.
COAG Andalusia also demands that the origin of these alerts be investigated, which companies exported and imported the products, where the contaminated products were marketed, and that the sanctions imposed be made public.
They also demand that the protocols for controlling imports from third countries be modified and that border controls be exhaustive, increasing the analysis percentage to the maximum. Test results should be immediate, and no product should be able to enter the Spanish and European markets without a food safety guarantee to prevent contaminated products from reaching consumers.
For more information:
COAG Andalucía
coagandalucia@coagandalucia.com
www.coagandalucia.com