Crop protection industry welcomes support of Russian government at launch of anti-counterfeit campaign

6 June 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."