The Kremlin is under pressure to scrap draconian plans to destroy embargoed western agricultural produce found entering Russia and instead distribute the confiscated food among the poor and needy.
Russian president Vladimir Putin issued a decree last week that aims to reinforce a ban on a wide range of agricultural products from countries that have imposed economic sanctions on Russia for its aggressive policies in Ukraine.
Under new rules coming into force tomorrow, any contraband western meat, fish, dairy products or fresh fruit and vegetables found on Russian territory will immediately be destroyed.
Mr Putin’s decree has met with dismay in Russia, where an economic recession coupled with a steep fall in the value of the rouble is eroding living standards. Russians who remember the hungry years after the second World War are instinctively averse to even the slightest waste of food.
Online petition
More than 51,000 people have signed an online petition posted on Change.org urging Mr Putin to annul the decree. Parliamentarians, they say, must urgently adopt legislation allowing the transfer of confiscated food imports to the poor, sick and elderly.
Andrei Krutov, a Russian parliamentary deputy, said contraband food imports seized by customs should be sent to eastern Ukraine to help ease the crisis there. Other officials warned it was folly to invest funds in food incinerators at a time when the economy was flagging and, if nothing else, confiscated supplies could be used as animal feed.
Mr Putin banned imports of agricultural produce from the US, Canada, the EU, Norway and Australia a year ago. This was in retaliation for imposing economic sanctions on Russia after he ordered the annexation of Ukraine's Crimea. The tit-for-tat measures were extended for another 12 months last week.
Russian officials have framed the embargo as an opportunity for domestic farmers to increase their share of the market and put more food on the nation’s tables.
However, Alexander Tkachev, the Russian agriculture minister, complained during a meeting with Mr Putin last week that the sanctions weren not bringing any such benefit. Russian food producers were facing unfair competition from cut-price, low-quality western produce illegally entering the market, he said.
Destruction plan
In response to Mr Putin’s decree, prime minister
Dmitri Medvedev
approved a detailed plan on Friday for the destruction of embargoed agricultural produce by any means that did not harm the environment.
To ensure transparency, he ruled that contraband food should be destroyed in the presence of independent witnesses and recorded in photographs and video.
Mr Putin's decree signalled the launch of a crackdown on contraband food trading and would make life harder for retailers and shoppers alike, said one grocer in a Moscow market.
“It won’t stop me getting hold of Italian parmesan and Parma ham,” she said, “but I’m going to have to be more careful about hiding supplies.”
Like many Russians, she suspects that corrupt officials will defy the president’s orders and sell confiscated food to “their own kind”.