Inspectors of the Food and Veterinary Office of the EU will stay in BiH between March 14 and 25, where they will inspect several farms in order to assess whether BiH has met the conditions so that the farmers could export milk and dairy products to the EU.
Although BiH has done a lot on the implementation of obligations from the Action Plan in the past period, several important conditions must be fulfilled before BiH farmers can export milk and dairy products to the EU, and the time is short.
This means that, in the coming ten days, BiH must have the Veterinary Law and Food Law adopted on state level. The laws have already been harmonized, but they must be officially passed. Besides that, the system of identification and control of movement of animals must also be upgraded.
The Veterinary Office of BiH confirmed that all these activities are in progress and that BiH will readily welcome the inspectors from the Food and veterinary Office of EU, and that the report will be positive.
Although these announcements are optimistic, agricultural producers eagerly await the report by the EU inspectors. Albeit the quality of dairy products from BiH was never questionable, the reason why the export of these products is still dubious lies in legislation and chain of command of food control.
The chain of command, in effect, implies a clear division of authority and responsibility in the system of official controls on food. Specifically in the case of BiH this includes defining the relevant authorities at all levels that would have clear tasks, duties and responsibilities for the implementation of official controls both in the segment of milk and milk products, as well as in the segment of other products of animal origin. Moreover, it also includes defining ways of conducting audits of official controls.
If the state parliament of BiH passes the foreseen laws in the coming period, possibilities for the BiH agricultural producers will be great, because the export of milk and dairy products to the EU market will be made official, without any disturbances, which will considerably influence the development of domestic economy.
(Source: klix.ba)
