Report: Russia not to feel vegetable deficit if it bans Turkish food

MOSCOW, Nov 26 (PRIME) -- Russia will not have a shortage of vegetables if Moscow bans imports of food from Turkey, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachyov said in an interview to Rossiya 1 television channel broadcast late on Wednesday.

“We will replace, say, vegetables, -- such countries as Iran, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Morocco, Israel will send vegetables to us; speaking of citrus, I think that South Africa and Argentina will actively be engaged in this. Russians will not feel that there is no more Turkey…on the country’s market (if the food import ban is imposed). This is obvious,” he said.

Turkey accounts for about 20% of Russia’s imports of vegetables and 25% of imports of citrus. The country is also second biggest buyer of Russian grain after Egypt, having bought 3.5 million tonnes of grain in 2015, Tkachyov said.

On Tuesday, Russia’s Sukhoi Su-24 bomber was shot down by an air-to-air Turkish missile and crashed in Syria. Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was “a stab in the back” from “accomplices of terrorists” and promised serious consequences in relations between Moscow and Ankara.

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