The Russian Ministry of Agriculture is interested in providing citizens with the highest possible quality grain, and therefore inspections of grain storage facilities are possible.
The ministry is currently considering reinstating regularly scheduled inspections of storage facilities with a capacity of up to 50,000 tons.
Apparently, the ministry believes that such small facilities pose particularly high risks regarding the quality of the stored grain. Furthermore, they are currently exempt from inspections altogether.
If this regime is lifted, inspection commissions will begin to visit approximately once every two years. While these inspections will be infrequent enough to avoid negatively impacting business operations, they will also allow for regular monitoring of the quality of products stored in warehouses.
Currently, there are approximately 300 storage facilities with a capacity of up to 100,000 tons across the country. From 2018 to 2022, approximately 300 violations were identified as a result of 400 inspections.
Thus, deficiencies in the operation of these facilities are quite common. However, after the introduction of a moratorium on monitoring such storage facilities, the number of violations found there was only 100.
This, however, does not mean that the problems have decreased. It is clear that the weakening of controls automatically leads to an increase in the number of violations that were simply not reported.
The problem is especially pressing given that Russia is one of the world’s largest grain exporters and is actively expanding into new markets.
At the same time, most importing countries impose very strict quality requirements on grain imported into their territory.
For example, due to this, Russia was unable to import its products to Algeria and Saudi Arabia for a long time.
Furthermore, improper grain storage is precisely the factor that, in most cases, leads to damage, reduces quality, and complicates the passage of trade barriers. Given this, it is logical that the Ministry of Agriculture intends to increase its attention specifically to storage facilities.
Furthermore, the agency plans to tighten controls implemented through the Federal State Information System «Grain.»
In particular, experts are dissatisfied with the fact that not all companies fully report grain shipment data in this system.
Currently, there is no penalty for failure to provide information. However, if such a penalty is introduced, it could significantly improve the system’s operation and increase its effectiveness, experts believe.
