Finnish Farmers Ask Government for Money Amid Russian Food Embargo

Finland’s Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK) says the country’s government needs to help milk producers survive through the current crisis, caused by the Russian ban on imports from countries that have targeted Russia with sanctions.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The ban closed the Russian market to meats, fish, dairy, fruits and vegetables, as well as some other products, including nuts, from the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway.

Prices for milk products have fallen and there is a "real crisis" in Finland that the government should address by allocating a package of financial aid to milk farmers, Yle broadcaster quotes an MTK representative as saying.

French farmers have also been affected by canceled Russian food exports. Moscow imposed an import ban on certain food products as a response to sanctions that Western countries have introduced accusing Moscow of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs – something that has been repeatedly denied by Russian authorities.

Russia has been boosting production volumes to fill its store shelves with local goods after it slapped the United States, the European Union and several other nations with the food import ban in August 2014.

In April 2015, Russia's Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev expressed hope that Russia would be able to substitute at least 90 percent of food imports with domestic products in the next 2-3 years.

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© Sputnik / Alexandr Kryazhev

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Drinks department at the Lenta hypermarket in Novosibirsk. The Russian government has banned all imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, milk and fruit and vegetables from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway for one year.

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© Sputnik / Maksim Blinov

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A customer chooses canned sprats in a Moscow supermarket. Rosselkhoznadzor found an excess amount of the carcinogen benzopyrene in the fish sprats, produced by the SIA Randa Klavas company, and imposed a laboratory control over the company.

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© Sputnik / Alexandr Kryazhev

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Drinks department at the Lenta hypermarket in Novosibirsk. The Russian government has banned all imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, milk and fruit and vegetables from Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United States and Norway for one year.

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© Sputnik / Maksim Blinov

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A customer chooses canned sprats in a Moscow supermarket. Rosselkhoznadzor found an excess amount of the carcinogen benzopyrene in the fish sprats, produced by the SIA Randa Klavas company, and imposed a laboratory control over the company.