There has been decided to postpone the implementation of the electronic veterinary certification for some time at the meeting of the Foreign Investment Advisory Council headed by Dmitry Medvedev. The EVC project has not been implemented yet, but it already has both the supporters and the opponents. They will meet on the site of the IV International Agro-Industrial Dairy Forum on November 8–9, 2017 in the House of Government of the Moscow Region.
The EVC system has been developed by the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Monitoring Service in Russia. It is supposed that it will allow to trace the way of the dairy products from the factory to the counter, as well as to fight the smuggling of the sanctions products.
Under the Veterinary Law, effective January 1, 2018, all the livestock products producers, including dairy products, meat products, and animal feed, are obliged to switch to the electronic accompanying veterinary documents. The formalization of the electronic documents is to be made in the Mercury system.
“The Great Moscow became a pilot site for the Mercury launch of at four enterprises: Zelenogradskoe LTD, Cheburashkin Brothers LTD, Hochland Russland OOO and PP Barybino CJSC,” said Denis P. Butsayev, Deputy Prime Minister of the Moscow Region; Minister of Investments and Innovations of the Moscow Region. “We saw some certain, technical difficulties when drafting the documents in the large manufacturing companies, in the warehouses of the retailers.”
Similarly, it turned out that the system cannot cope even with a one large company under the stress test of Mercury, confirmed Danone to the Vedomosti: it took more than 10 hours instead of an hour to process 10,000 invoices. The market participants said that the EVC implementation in the current form threatens to paralyze the production of food. The Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Monitoring Service believes that the Mercury is ready for full operation.
Nowadays only the suppliers of raw materials are obliged to receive the veterinary accompanying documents: the raw milk, meat and aquatic bioresources. The documents for a month are issued by the regional veterinary service.
Nevertheless, the supporters of the implementation are confident that the AIC Mercury is the future. First of all, the electronic veterinary certificates will be needed for the Russian meat and dairy products on the European markets. This issue has become particularly relevant since Russia began the process of the accession to the Eurasian Economic Union. In addition, as a practice shows, the Mercury effectively fights against the milk falsification, the amount of which currently reaches 7 % on the market. Acting on the principle of “from the field to the counter,” the EVC increases the transparency of the industry as a whole, demonstrating clearly where the meat and milk come from to the tables of Russians.
What is going to happen to the EVC? Its future and prospects for implementation will be discussed at the IV International Agro-Industrial Dairy Forum which will be held in the House of Government of the Moscow Region from November 8 to 9.
