Following a conference on Ukraine's accession to the World Trade Organization, Valeriy Pyatnitskiy said: "Our problem is the standards. We used to think that Ukraine produced good quality, tasty, and inexpensive products."
However, as living standards have risen, including in Russia, people have become more concerned about the effect products have on their health than about the price, he said.
The official also said that Ukraine had not been investing much in veterinary development or in the quality of its food products.
"If our standards corresponded to Russian or Europeans ones, then Ukraine would not have had to face so many claims, and the conflict with Russia would have had a different resolution," Pyatnitskiy said.
He added, however, that Russia's ban on Ukrainian meat and milk products lay in the political sphere.
The ban on Russian imports of meat and milk products via Ukraine was introduced December 30, followed on January 1 by restrictions on all pre-prepared products and a ban on all meat and milk products from Ukraine on January 20.
Russia said the ban would be in effect until Ukraine provided full veterinary and sanitary guarantees and signed a protocol on veterinary control of imported products.
In a reciprocal move, Ukraine's Minister of Agricultural Policy Alexander Baranivskiy said his country could consider banning individual Russian goods, unless Russia reviewed its position.
"I don't want to sound blunt, but we have sufficient levers of influence," the minister said.
Baranivskiy added that Ukraine had imported farm products from Russia worth $457 million in 2005.
