Romanian vegetables safe for consumption: minister

Romania's Agriculture Minister Valeriu Tabara said on Monday that vegetables grown in the country are currently safe for consumption.

"There is no danger in eating Romanian vegetables, be them cucumbers, lettuce or tomatoes," said the minister, also expressing hope that "Germany will unveil the exact source of the infection so that no more games will be played to block other export contracts."

He complained that Romanian farmers are suffering because of an event that did not occur in Romania.

Tabara stressed Germany was wrong to put the blame on a product instead of on the environment where the product got in touch with the germs.

"Germany has several times changed its position: first, the bacterium was linked to Spanish cucumbers, then to Dutch cucumbers, while this morning we found out the embryos of an Asian beans species eaten as salads with witloof were to be blamed. There is a false statement here as well, because the infection was extraneous, not coming from inside the plant," said Tabara.

The minister asked local producers to submit to the ministry their estimates of losses, saying that Bucharest will ask the European Commission to compensate all the cucumber farmers who have been affected.

The ministry's data indicate that Romanian producers are losing 100,000 euros (146,000 U.S. dollars) a day because of the ban on intra-community trade in cucumbers and a 70-percent drop in domestic sales.

Source: Xinhua

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