Diary products to comply with EU requirements from January

BELGRADE - Serbian Minister of Agriculture and Environmental Protection Snezana Boskovic-Bogosavljevic announced Friday that from January 1, the tolerance level of aflatoxin in milk in the domestic market will be 0.05 micrograms per kilogram of milk.

"The Rulebook setting the maximum level of aflatoxin in milk to 0.05 micrograms per one kilogram shall enter into force on January 1. An outstanding result has been achieved in a relatively short period of time thanks to responsible and coordinated efforts of our farmers and expert services on the ground," Boskovic-Bogosavljevic told Tanjug.

She observed that it had taken some EU states as many as seven years to adapt to the standard and make the change from 0.5 to 0.05 micrograms/kg.

The safety and quality of agricultural products will continue to be one of our priorities in the future, said Bogosavljevic-Boskovic, adding that the National Reference Laboratory would start working soon.

In 2010, Serbia harmonized its rules on aflatoxin levels in milk with EU standards, although it was not obliged to do that, but it turned out that the country was not prepared to implement the rules consistently.

An aflatoxin affair broke out in the country on February 19, 2013, when milk safety analyses established that most samples contained up to 0.5 micrograms carcinogenic content in a kilogram of milk, while the maximum tolerance level was 0.05 micrograms per kilogram.

The increase in aflatoxin concentrations in milk supplied by some producers was traced back to animal feed getting infected as a result of a severe drought that year.

In February 28, the Serbian government changed its rules again and restored the permitted levels of the carcinogenic...