Sales of Serbia's No. 1 export product on hold - First shipment of corn returned from Italy

Trading in corn on the Commodity Exchange in Novi Sad died down yesterday morning. New updates on "toxic corn" from Serbia are now awaited. The news that a drought caused the contamination of our corn with aflatoxin, the most cancerous known compound that can be found in food for people and animals, has worried both citizens and businesses. Corn exports reached the value of USD 41 million in October, while the effect of this discovery on December exports is yet to be seen.

Zarko Galetin, director of the Commodity Exchange, says to our web portal that they have not noticed that the latest reports affected the corn price in any way, but he adds that corn sales have been very low since yesterday morning.

- I assume that the official information is now being awaited from the Ministry of Agriculture. What I must point out is that the corn traded on our exchange is of SRBS quality, meaning that it contains no toxic matter - Zarko Galetin explains to our web portal.

This year's corn yield has reached 4 million tonnes and, according to Marinko Ukropina, director of the certification company SGS, only 32 percent are safe for human consumption.

Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania have a similar problem, but they took adequate measures in the growing season and the post-harvest period (by separating healthy from contaminated corn and not mixing them in storages) to substantially reduce the percentage of contaminated corn. Unofficially, maximum 20 percent of their corn yield is contaminated.

- The Serbian corn is famous as a brand worldwide. Its main characteristic is that it is suitable for human consumption because it is neither toxic nor genetically modified, so that this new fact will have an adverse effect on the quantity of corn suitable for use, given that toxic corn from Serbia has already been confiscated in Italy, as well as on the reputation of our brand. Most exporters are aware of that, while traders around the world demand strict control and testing before any export - says Marinko Ukropina.

According to him, the contamination of corn was caused by a drought, and all the researches conducted to date show that the level of aflatoxin in corn is higher than allowed and call for an urgent reaction from competent government agencies and all those participating in the production, storage, sales and processing of corn.

As SGS pointed out in a statement, it has checked the quality of corn at the request of a client after an information that a substantial percentage of aflatoxin is found in the Serbian corn shipped to Italy was officially published on the EU web portal RASFF.

Based on 375 samples tested, which represents the quantity of 375,000 tonnes of corn, SGS experts have determined that nearly 60 percent of the tested corn are suitable for use, 32 percent of which can be used in human nutrition, whereas the rest can be used as animal feed.

On that occasion, the Ministry of Agriculture has issued a statement saying that all shipments of corn must pass a phytosanitary inspection that is being carried out by competent people at all border crossings. The statement also reads that none of the shipments in 2012 was contaminated with aflatoxin.

Milan Pastor, agricultural advisor at the Serbian Chamber of commerce, says he expects to hear the official position and complete information from the Ministry.

- I would like to know where this contaminated corn comes from. Where is it now? What happens with the used corn? Is it fed to animals? – says Pastor.

As he notes, the effect of poisonous corn on people's health is much more important than a damage on export figures and the brand itself.

One of the questions people in Serbia ask themselves now is whether we will have to import healthy corn in the future?

Marija Kambic