Russia’s southern city of Krasnodar has closed roads to block movement of some food due to African Swine Fever.
The ban applies to pork goods and produce such as root vegetables, Krasnodar’s regional administration said in a statement.
It may be extended to transportation of other products if the virus continues to spread, Eduard Kutygin, deputy governor and Krasnodar’s agriculture minister said.
Krasnodar is Russia’s main grain growing region, and accounted for 12% of last year’s national crop with 11.4 million metric tons, according to the state statistics data.
It is also Russia’s main grain exporting route through Black Sea ports.
"Essentially, this won’t affect grain exports at all," Alexander Korbut, vice president of Russia’s Grain Union, said by phone from Moscow.
More than 100,000 pigs died and have been slaughtered in the past two weeks in southern Krasnodar because of the virus, according to the regional government.
The so-called quarantine regime will run for two months, Kutygin said.
The virus has no vaccine and is deadly for pigs and harmless for humans, according to the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation.
Since 2007, it has affected 307 Russian areas, caused 540,000 hogs to be slaughtered and resulted in farmers getting 1.7bn rubles (€42m) in compensation, according to the food safety agency known as Rosselkhoznadzor. Krasnodar is the most affected in Russia, it said.
Source: bloomberg
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