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In December 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Russian Parliament that Russia should become the world’s largest supplier of organic foods.  Putin stated: “Not only can we ourselves eat it, but Russia could become the world’s largest supplier of healthy, environmentally-friendly, high-quality food that has long been missing in some western producers. Especially as the demand on the global market for such products is growing."

2015 was a year of change in Russian agriculture with the Russian government announcing a whole new approach to food production and labeling. In January 2015, Putin signed the Russian Federation Code of Administrative Offences into law, including a new article establishing liability for the violation of mandatory requirements for the labeling of food products that contain GMOs. In June, at a session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich announced that Russia will not use genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). Russia has chosen a different path. We will not use these technologies”, he said. Russian products will be “one of the cleanest in the world”, Dvorkovich added. 

 

A bill for a full ban on the cultivation of GM crops is currently going through the State Duma. Russian Minister of Agriculture Nikolai Fyodorov also believes that Russia must remain a GMO-free country. At a meeting of deputies representing rural areas organized by United Russia, he said that the government will not “poison their citizens.”

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