Sicily, agri-food: the Region has Forestry Corps controls on foreign wheat arriving in Pozzallo.

New controls of Forestry Corps of the Sicilian Region on wheat exchange market intended for marketing and consumption in Sicily. The agents of the Sicily regional agri-food operational unit (Noras), in three different joint interventions with the phytosanitary service of the regional agriculture department, in the month of February they took samples from loads of grain arriving on board ships docked in the port of Pozzallo, in the Ragusa area, to subject them to laboratory analyses. The checks were arranged by the regional departments of Agriculture and Territory and Environment.

On February 23st and XNUMXrd, samples were taken from a load of three thousand tons of wheat exchange market tender Croatian; yesterday, February 26, other samples were taken from a load of 27 thousand tons of durum wheat and three thousand tons of soft wheat originating from the Canadian state of Quebec. This morning all the samples taken were delivered toExperimental zooprophylactic institute of Palermo to be examined. Within a week the results of the multi-residue analyzes will be known to verify the possible presence of glyphosate, pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals and toxins in quantities exceeding the legal limits.

«I want to thank the men of the Forestry Corps who took samples of wheat coming from abroad. The region – says the regional councilor for Agriculture, Luke Sammartino - is there and carefully monitors the quality of this wheat to protect our producers from unfair competition and the health of consumers put at risk by poor quality products".

«This is a delicate issue which has health as well as economic implications. For this – underlines the regional councilor for Territory and Environment, Elena Pagan - my department, in agreement with the Department of Agriculture, has prepared these checks which we intend to repeat regularly. I thank the Noras staff of the Forestry Corps for their careful work. We will use all the means we have available to defend our agriculture from unfair competition and to protect Sicilians from products that could be unhealthy because they are grown in countries where there are poor phytosanitary controls. The government of the Region will maintain constant vigilance to ensure that Sicily does not suffer wild colonization in terms of food that damages our health and our economy."

Last year, Noras carried out eight checks on loads of foreign wheat arriving in Sicily. The analyzes of the samples carried out by laboratories accredited by the Central Inspectorate for Quality Protection and Fraud Repression (Icqrf) of the Ministry of Agriculture verified their compliance with the legal values.