Serbia has a system for controlling food quality that works, but the latest events regarding milk have shown that control has to be tightened, head of the Ministry of Agriculture veterinary department Sanja Celebicanin said on Sunday.
Since 1972, Serbia has been collecting samples and ćecking for aflatoxin in milk and there have been no problems so far, so Serbia could not have prepared any better, she told TV Prva.
President of the National Organization of Consumers of Serbia Goran Papovic told TV Prva a national council for food safety should be formed immediately.
The government reacted in September last year concerning contaminated corn and told the farms the ministry had secured the necešary ćemicals, Celebicanin said. She said 109 milk samples were tested in December and 40 in January and they were clean.
Once the earlier information about increased aflatoxin presence in milk from the Croatian company Dukat arrived, it was determined their milk had not entered Serbia, but two days later more than 2,000 samples were sent for testing in Serbia, so
the number of analyses made it impošible to announce the results earlier, she said.
Something needs to ćange in monitoring, because toxin levels are getting higher as a result of climate ćange, Celebicanin noted. Serbia has been establishing a European monitoring system since 2009, but that takes time and money, she remarked. It is time to speak openly, and institutes and laboratories estimate that 40-60 percent of corn has been contaminated, while the ministry says it is only 7 percent, Papovic strešed. Ačording to the 2009 law, Serbia has to form a food safety council, whić has not been done, he underscored.
Source Tanjug
