On 23 February “1in.am” presented the comment of Telman Nazaryan, the president of “The National Beekeepers Association” NGO. According to the information provided by Mr. Nazaryan EU doesn’t accept honey produced in Armenia, as the use of “Bipin”, which is used as a medicine for treatment of bees in Armenia is prohibited in EU.
In this regard some clarifications are submitted below.
By the Decision N444-Ն of RA Government of 22 April 2010 “On making amendments to the Decision N1904-Ն of RA Government of 14 December 2006 “On approving the maximum residue levels for pesticides and nitrates in food products of animal and plant origin” and “On defining the maximum residue levels of antibiotics, pesticides and other contaminants in honey””, maximum residue level of 0.2mg/kg is defined for “Bipin”(amitraz). Thus, the use of the aforementioned substance is allowed in such frequency and quantity, which does not exceed the specified residue level in honey. The Decision N 444-Ն of RA Government of 22 April 2010 was developed and adopted on the basis of the EU 37/2010 regulation, where maximum residue level of 0.2mg/kg is defined for amitraz in honey as well.
The use of “Bipin” (amitraz) is not prohibited in the Republic of Armenia. “Bipin” is a registered medicine in Armenia. It is included in N268-Ն order of 22 December, 2005 of RA Minister of Agriculture “On approving the list of veterinary medicines registered in RA”.
It should be mentioned that “Bipin” medicine of “Agrobioprom” CJSC of the Russian Federation is acquired and allocated for the fight against ticks in the scopes of state funded measures.
In 2012, the State Service for Food Safety has developed the residue monitoring plan for honey in accordance with EU legislation requirements and submitted it to the DG SANCO, which allowed to implement a monitoring of residues in locally produced honey and to present the results to the DG SANCO. It was a basis for the export permission of Armenian honey to EU. There is no restriction for the export of honey from Armenia to EU and the reason for not exporting local honey to EU is the low competitiveness conditioned by high cost price of local honey in the foreign market.
Activities are carried out by local producers for the certification of organic honey production, which will allow exporting organic honey to EU in a high price.