Russia bans all U.S. food, EU fruit and vegetables in sanctions response; NATO fears invasion

[DeSwiss]

Source: Reuters

By Polina Devitt and Maria Tsvetkova
MOSCOW/DONETSK Ukraine
Wed Aug 6, 2014 7:52pm EDT

(Reuters) - Russia will ban all imports of food from the United States and all fruit and vegetables from Europe, the state news agency reported on Wednesday, a sweeping response to Western sanctions imposed over its support for rebels in Ukraine.

The measures will hit consumers at home who rely on cheap imports, and on farmers in the West for whom Russia is a big market. Moscow is by far the biggest buyer of European fruit and vegetables and the second biggest importer of U.S. poultry.

RIA quoted the spokesman for Russia's food safety watchdog VPSS, Alexei Alexeenko, as saying all European fruit and vegetables and all produce from the United States would be included in a ban drawn up on the orders of President Vladimir Putin to punish countries that imposed sanctions on Russia.

Earlier, Alexeenko told Reuters bans on EU and U.S. goods would be "quite substantial", and would specifically include U.S. poultry, although he declined to give a full list of banned goods. He could not be reached again after the RIA report.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/06/us-ukraine-crisis-idUSKBN0G61K220140806

---

- Not to worry. The top poultry-producing states are all red. And since they know all about boot-straps and keeping your chin up during tough times (cause that's what they say to the poor all the time), they should be just fine. So I'm sure they won't be looking for any ''help'' other than what the Lord deems fit.

[merrily]

1. "The top poultry-producing states are all red."

I was not aware of that particular factoid before reading the OP. However, now that I see it, I feel as though I always knew it.

Most of the chickenhawks are Republicans. (At least, that used to be so.)

And most of all chicken shit is in red states.

So, of course, most of the chickens are also in red states.

This also hit me.

The measures will hit consumers at home who rely on cheap imports, and on farmers in the West for whom Russia is a big market.

Russians think our food is cheap? Interesting.

[DeSwiss]

2. So while some Repugs.....

...had complained that Obama is too soft on Putin, now his sanctions gambit will answer that complaint, while simultaneously dealing a financial blow to the Tea-Bagger States.

- Eleventy-th dimensional chess is harrrddddddd........

[merrily]

3. I believe in unintended consequences much more than I believe in eleventy-dimensional chess.

I do not think any President would intentionally arrange things so that a U.S. industry gets hurt, nor do I believe that Obama would hit poultry farmers just because most of them are located in red states. (Plenty of great Democrats live in red states, just not quite enough.)

[DeSwiss]

4. Anything is possible. n/t

[merrily]

5. In theory, yes. But some things are much more likely to occur than others.

For example, that walking on water thing has happened only once in all of human history on this planet, if then.

[Thor_MN]

13. In Minnesota, we walk on water every winter.

Then we make a hole in it and go fishing.

[Igel]

21. Ah, I see the problem.

At some point most of us learned to distinguish between what we call "states of matter". It's a 3rd-grade science word here in Texas, although they start teaching the concept much earlier in public schools.

The runny stuff that's usually clear and we swim in or use for showers we call "water."

If it's solid--that makes it awfully had to swim in, for instance--we have a completely different word, "ice."

If you want a glass of "water" it would be considered a sign of intense ill-will to give somebody a glass of ice. If you see somebody unconscious and are told to splash water in their face, you do not hit them with a block of ice, nor do you baptize small children by throwing ice cubes at them.

[Thor_MN]

46. Ah, I see a bigger problem.

At some point, most of us learn what humor means.

I have a degree in Chemistry, btw...

[jakeXT]

6. TTIP here we come

According to the source, the US sees slapping Russia with sanctions as a way to promote its own trade agenda with Europe, a side rarely explored in mainstream media. The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the US and Europe would create the world's largest free trade zone, but some worry it could balloon into an "economic NATO" or could end up putting corporation interest above national

http://rt.com/business/172888-9-eu-block-sanctions-russia/

[DeSwiss]

14. We can't sell our Anti-biotic, BGH, Arsenic & GMO laden food in Europe.

- They won't let us and wish we didn't too.

[Igel]

22. The idea's been proposed that the Russians like the idea of the sanctions.

It means that a lot of stuff will have to be manufactured or grown locally. Russism in one country, so to speak ( || to "Socialism in one country," what Stalin did when the world revolution that was predicted failed to come to pass--Communism's equivalent of gathering on a hilltop for Jesus or aliens that never showed coming.) It's making for good PR--Russia should be self-sufficient, and why would you want those nasty Western things like Coca-Cola, anyway? Buy good "patriotic" food and goods (or maybe that word should be translated "domestic," hard to resolve the ambiguity at times and often a speaker means both).

Putin's played off this for self-defense. Unless Donbas really is annexed, it's unlikely Putin will trust offshoring military component manufacture or production of lower-tech gadgets. In fact, a lot of the plants used for Russian-ordered goods have been shot up and used for artillery practice by rebels. Ukraine might be good for raw materials, but it's treated as stupid, poor, uneducated relatives ... and Russia has liked keeping it that way. Raw materials, cheap labor, and a place to sell higher-value goods. Classic imperialism.

[jakeXT]

23. Pepsi was always the drink behind the iron curtain

On July 24, 1959, the first American trade exhibition ever held in the Soviet Union was opened by Nikita S. Khrushchev, then the Soviet leader, and Richard M. Nixon, then the vice president of the United States. At one point during their tour of what was called the American National Exhibition, they faced off in what became known as the “kitchen debate,” because it concluded in a mock-up of an American kitchen of the day.

Mr. Nixon then led Mr. Khrushchev to a booth set up at the exhibition by Pepsi-Cola, where the Soviet leader sampled the soft drink sold then with the ad slogan, “Be sociable, have a Pepsi.”

The idea to have Mr. Khrushchev taste the capitalist beverage was suggested to Mr. Nixon by Donald M. Kendall, then 38 and the head of Pepsi-Cola International. He bucked the company’s senior executives in being at the exhibition because they doubted anything could come of a commercial event in a Communist country.

“Pepsi reaped a publicity windfall the company’s elders never expected,” according to an article in The New York Times in 1999, and six years later Mr. Kendall became chief executive of Pepsi-Cola. In the 1970s, Mr. Kendall helped engineer a deal with Mr. Khrushchev’s successors to barter cola syrup for vodka, making Pepsi-Cola the first capitalist product to be sold in the U.S.S.R.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/pepsi-official-soda-of-the-cold-war/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

I wonder, are most Russians still planting food on their Dachas ? In many countries of the former eastern bloc, lawns have replaced vegetables.


They will also have a problem with their old nuclear warheads

In his article for RFE/RL's Russian Service, Voronov notes that more than half of the components of ground-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) can be traced back to Ukraine and that these rockets carry over 80 percent of Russia's warheads.

The essential components include targeting and control systems, most importantly for Russia's keystone ICBM, the RS-20B Voyevoda, known by NATO as the SS-18 Satan. The guidance system was produced in Kharkiv at a factory known as "Elektropribor" in the Soviet era and as "Khatron" today.

Ukrainian specialists continue to carry out regular inspections of Russia's strategic missiles in order to certify them for service.

Voronov writes that the technical certification is particularly important as even the newest Satan missiles are almost 25 years old and nearing the end of their service lifetime. Moscow needs to keep them operable until 2018 - 2020, when a new Russian-built ICBM, the Sarmat, is due to take their place.

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-ukraine-military-equipment/25312911.html

[littlemissmartypants]

7. Cheap chicken in the USA as a possible outcome? nt

[DeSwiss]

15. One would think......

...if the purported laws of supply and demand were still at-play.

- And they're supposed to be safer now that they made them stop using artificial fatteners like arsenic, according to the FDA.

So the breasts won't be a big as a VW like they used to be......

[BronxBoy]

30. The big breasts....

are actually a genetic characteristic of the breeds used in commercial houses along with the rapid growth rate.

[DeSwiss]

32. I understand about the inhumane breeding techniques.....

...that allow for the cross-breeding of birds to maximize profit. Being able to actually stand in the cramped cage you'll spend your life in, is obviously secondary.

However, it is the arsenic-laced additives which helped chicken, pigs and turkeys (all of whom were receiving this stuff until the ban lat year) gain weight because they have a unique bacterial disease called histomoniasis, one which only arsenic-based treatments have been found to be effective:

The compounds — roxarsone, carbarsone and arsanilic acid — have been used in 101 drugs added to feed for chickens, turkeys and pigs to prevent disease, increase feed efficiency and promote growth, according to the Center for Food Safety, which together with several other advocacy groups filed a petition almost four years ago seeking to ban the drugs in animal feeds.

“Zoetis withdrew roxarsone from the market voluntarily two years ago, and the companies have moved to withdraw the other two,” said Richard Sellers, vice president for feed regulation and nutrition at the American Feed Industry Association. “Now the F.D.A. is legally withdrawing their ability to market those drugs.”

The issue of arsenic in food has drawn increased public scrutiny since research last year by Consumer Reports found substantial arsenic levels in rice. Arsenic residue in rice often comes from the water used to grow it, and poultry feces are widely used as fertilizer for a variety of crops.

Pfizer, which spun its animal health division off as Zoetis this year, withdrew its roxarsone drug, 3-Nitro, from the market in 2011 after the F.D.A. found inorganic arsenic in chicken livers. “The product is no longer manufactured or used,” said Ashley Peterson, vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs at the National Chicken Council. “No other feed additives containing arsenic are currently used in broiler meat production in the United States.”

Nitarsone, the last of the four drugs the groups sought to ban from animal feeds, is the only known treatment for blackhead, or histomoniasis, a disease that can kill turkeys. link

[BronxBoy]

33. Well....

I've never used any arsenic or any of the other stuff in that article. But I have raised Cornish Crosses on grass and know many pastured poultry producers who still do and don't use that stuff. You can take a bird from 1 day old to 3.5 to 6 pounds in 8 weeks without using that stuff. It's all genetic.

[DeSwiss]

38. The practices in breeding and raising that I refer to......

...are the same ones that led many states to pass laws that prohibit disclosure of the ill-treatment and abuses in how factory animals are raised.

- That's where much of the body damage and broken bones occur, in cramps cages like these:

[BronxBoy]

43. Oh....they are horrible

No argument from me. And the laying houses are just as bad. The only point I was trying to make was that many farmers who raise pastured birds, who live much better lives, are in many cases the same breed as what you see in the pics. And they are used because if the genetic predisposition to put on a lit if weight fast .

I never heard if the stuff in that article. But I have heard of some insane chick to processing rates. And I have to wonder if those chemicals increase the weight gain of these birds even more

[wordpix]

40. I don't think it's genetic---it's how you treat the animals that helps them grow

big and healthy.

When I was a family farmer, we would sometimes get one-yr. old hens from factory farms bc they were used up. A few weeks or couple of months of running free on the farm and getting good feed and their feathers came back and they laid eggs for years.

These factory farms are not only killing chickens but they're killing us, too. Everything comes up through the food chain.

[BronxBoy]

42. Those sound like they were laying hens...

Not broilers or meat birds. Most animal welfare organizations have standards against the use of hybrid birds such as the Cornish Cross because it's been bred to put on a lot of weight very fast. And they put on this weight no matter what environment they are in.

Contrast this with a more heritage meat bird such as the Freedom Ranger which has a slimmer body and slower growth rate and you'll see where the genetics come in

[wordpix]

39. already cheap w/inhuman crowding in cages, agrotoxin-laden feed coming up thru food chain

and BTW "free range" does not mean the chickens are outdoors. It just means they're not in cages. Mostly, they're free to range indoors in crowded conditions in warehouse-type housing.

[littlemissmartypants]

41. Have you been in a chicken house?

No offense. But next to a hog house...it's the second most disturbing place for animal ag. and I am including turkey houses with chicken houses. Once we got past the coop size we lost our way. It's all a big inhumane disaster.

Where IS the poultry smilie?
I rest my case.

[wordpix]

45. huh? I'm big on humane treatment of animals. What did you not get in my post?

[littlemissmartypants]

48. Just asking. Have you? eom

[kelliekat44]

8. Good. A starving nation ban food and raises their collective glass of vodka. nt

[pampango]

10. But Putin and his buddies are not the ones who will go hungry or suffer from higher

food prices. Russia imports 1/3 of its food.

[DeSwiss]

16. That was Stalin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Russia

[Igel]

25. Stalin died in the '50s.

That stat's from the last decade. Not of his life, but over the last 11-12 years (such stats are never up to the minute).

http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-food-ban-us-eu/26517950.html

Last year it imported $43 billion worth of food. No word at this source as to what exports are, but Russian food exports typically aren't all that large for most categories.
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/putin-orders-agricultural-import-bans-on-countries-that-sanctioned-russia/504675.html

The official line is that other countries that Russia wants to build more alliances with will be graced with Russian food orders. Brazil, for instance, is a BRICS country that Russia is going to rely on. And Argentina has little love for the US, meaning that Russia sees it as a natural ally, and has for some time. (This whole "Cold War" thing has been brewing for a while, but .) The pampas are good for milk/beef, and we get (or used to get) a lot of our beef from there. Russia, because the government controls so much of industry and food production, uses its trade for politics. Think of it this way: Imagine that Microsoft, Apple, etc., etc., consistently planned where to build factories and if places like Costco and Walmart as a rule ordered products not based on economics but on what politicians wanted them to do.

[DeSwiss]

28. My reference was with respect......

...to her mentioning of people in Russia starving, as if it were happening now.

[MattSh]

17. Starving?

Where the hell did you get that from?

[former9thward]

44. The 1930s.

[dembotoz]

9. let them eat cake

[tomm2thumbs]

18. let them eat Vodka!

[theHandpuppet]

24. More like turnips and cabbage

I don't think the Russian people will appreciate it.

[santroy79]

11. awesome!!!

this should lower the price her in the states since we will have more supply then demand!

[WhoWoodaKnew]

12. Putin is an idiot. He's gonna make his country suffer for no reason other than he's trying to be a

big man.

[jwirr]

19. IMO this is a sanction that only hurts his own people.

[DeSwiss]

20. Right.....

- Only.

Top U.S. Poultry Producing States

[Igel]

26. "Only" is an overstatement, to be sure.

At the same time, it reduces world market efficiency. If Russia gets beef and diary from S. America that increases the transit time, tying up more means of transportation as well as increasing shipping costs. The stuff is fungible--but it means that where Russia *used* to get milk and meat will have to ship their product farther, increasing transit time, tying up more means of transportation as well as increasing shipping costs.

One thing that market-based economics *does* tend to do is, on average, find certain kinds of efficiencies. The Soviet complaint was that in the West you could find the same product from two suppliers being shipped past each other--in effect, something like "Houston orders from Toledo while Detroit orders the same stuff from San Antonio". The anecdote, however, didn't serve to falsify the generalization: Having a single, badly placed supplier was usually less efficient, and overall the West's system was more efficient.

Sanctions introduce inefficiencies (typically using principles of political science to run an economy is rather like using techniques of literary analysis to run a hospital). That's why they're used.

[DeSwiss]

27. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.....

...who benefits and who doesn't, over time.

- Meantime, this move sure as hell left a lot of fruit and veggies wilting right now......

[wordpix]

29. "hit consumers who rely on cheap imports" - cheap US food due to agrotoxins, inhumane treatment of

Last edited Thu Aug 7, 2014, 01:44 PM - Edit history (1)

animals

1.1 BILLION pounds of pesticides dumped 2007 (latest year the figure is available)---EPA

Plus fungicides, chemical fertilizers that are ruining our waterways

New cancer patients: 1.66 million in 2013

Neurological illnesses also increasing: e.g. new Parkinson's disease diagnoses at 50,000 per year.

It's all related.

Russia isn't missing much

[DeSwiss]

31. This.

[wordpix]

37. yes i forgot to include GMO, another boon to the agrotoxin industry

[ChairmanAgnostic]

34. Why do I have the image of

Putin holding a gun to his own head, ordering people to listen to him, or else he will shoot.

[DeSwiss]

52. You haven't taken your meds? :-} n/t

[whistler162]

35. As the old song goes...

Seems like old times. No dinner, no drinks, and Stalin!

[PeaceMonger12345]

36. It is a complex problem so I would not simplify it so much.

The professional analysis of food supply block from EU is difficult due complexity of Russian Economy.

If you Google Russian Agriculture:

https://www.google.com/#q=russian+agriculture

the results show a lot of RT articles showing Putin Ban.


I think Russian would do fine without Europe if the SW Region (Rostoev Region, Krasnodar, Volgorod, and Belgrad)
These Regions are capable to supply grain, milk, and wheat.

Likewise, the exportation for Ural and Siberia may be rearranged.

[DeSwiss]

60. I rarely use Google.

I don't like them knowing that much about me if I can help it. A scholarly search away from the madding crowds, on Modern Russian agriculture I would think might be more apropos.

- Considering this and other issues regarding ''Russia'' are in the news, I'm not surprised that the Google Algo is going Russia-Crazy about right now.

[Trillo]

47. Maybe food prices in the U.S. will decrease.

Sometimes gray clouds turn white.

[Amonester]

49. I guess so, unless they ship the surplus to soup kitchens for free...

Highly doubtful, though. They'll want the money, even if they'll have to cut prices.

[indepat]

50. How dare Russia stooping to doing what is done to them. Don't the Russkies understand that the

franchise to sanction other sovereign nations rests exclusively with the U.S.? Dumb asses, indeed.

[DeSwiss]

53. Indeed!

- And besides, they don't make anything in Russia so they need stuff!

Which is why we won't sell stuff to them!!!!




If you look closely at the leaders we have, you'll see why our world is screwed up........

[indepat]

67. Our nation, including many of its leaders and institutions, is eaten up with an almost always fatal

virus, to wit, right-wing hysteria that has morphed into iniquity, denial, and whorish wickedness.

[Sunlei]

51. Americans will be better off if all the states exporting produce and chicken sell domestic.

Lower prices in grocery stores with a bit of competition.

[dipsydoodle]

54. Brazil to Substantially Increase Exports of Meat, Dairy to Customs Union

BUENOS AIRES, August 8 (RIA Novosti) – The decision of the Russian agricultural watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor to allow about 90 Brazilian agricultural producers access to the Russian market will help Brazil substantially increase its exports of meat and dairy products to the Customs Union, Brazilian Agriculture Minister Neri Geller said.

On Thursday, the Brazilian Agriculture Ministry announced that on August 6, Rosselkhoznadzor allowed 89 Brazilian suppliers of meat and dairy products on Russian market. Another two suppliers are expecting to receive their permissions in the coming days.

“Therefore Brazil will substantially increase its meat and dairy products exports to the countries of the Customs Union, by that strengthening the international partnership on agriculture and the relations of trust and friendship between the two countries [Russia and Brazil],” the Brazilian Agriculture Ministry quoted Geller as saying in a statement released August 7.

According to the document, Russia already is the principal destination of Brazilian beef and pork exports. In 2013 Brazil supplied Russia with 303,000 tons of beef worth $1.2 billion and 134 tons of pork worth $412 million. In total, Brazil exported $2.7 billion worth of agricultural products to Russia in 2013.

http://en.ria.ru/business/20140808/191832618/Brazil-to-Substantially-Increase-Exports-of-Meat-Dairy-to.html

[DeSwiss]

55. Looks like those sancguns are working....

...just fine.

- Meet: ''The Gas for Guavas Program''

[dipsydoodle]

58. Not too much fun for Lithuania and Finland

both of whom have high exports to Russia.

[DeSwiss]

59. Maybe they should consider BRICs.

- After all, competition is what democracy and the free market is all about, right?

[workinclasszero]

56. Im sure those redstate baggers

are relieved that their produce and poultry are no longer being sold to those godless commie Rooskies!

[DeSwiss]

62. Indeed.

- The key to pulling-off a sanction is that it has to hurt the other guy more. They used to teach that in Econ 101......

[center]
''Mmmm? Sanction, you say? A sanction
is what you use instead of a gun. And you only use it when
you KNOW have them by the balls. If the sanctions
don't hurt them, then you have just shot yourself.''[/center]

[dipsydoodle]

57. Reuters: EU experts to debate Russia's ban on European food on Aug. 14

Aug 8 (Reuters) - Senior agricultural experts from all European Union countries will meet on Aug. 14 in Brussels to debate and analyse the impact of a Russian ban on EU food, the European Commission said on Friday.

Moscow banned most food imports from the West on Thursday in retaliation for U.S. and EU sanctions imposed over Russia's actions in Ukraine.

"In the current context, the most important is to react in a proportionate and rapid way should the situation arise," EU's Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Ciolos said in a statement.

The EU's executive arm was also establishing a task force to analyse the potential impacts sector by sector, and to assess how it can provide support.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/08/08/ukraine-crisis-eu-food-idINB5N0OK00G20140808

[DeSwiss]

63. !

"In the current context, the most important is to react in a proportionate and rapid way should the situation arise..."

- Translation snafu?

[dipsydoodle]

61. Ukraine Threatens Oil and Gas Cut-Off in Russia Sanctions

Last edited Fri Aug 8, 2014, 03:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Ukraine threatened to block Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe in new sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s government, which it blames for a separatist uprising that has ravaged the country’s east.

Ukraine, which no longer receives any gas from Russia but acts as a conduit for its neighbor’s European customers, is considering a “complete or partial ban on the transit of all resources” across its territory, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk told reporters today in Kiev. It may also ban Russian planes from its airspace and cut defense-industry cooperation.

“There’s no doubt that Russia will continue its course -- started a decade ago -- aimed at banning imports of Ukrainian goods, limiting cooperation with Ukraine, pressure and blackmail,” Yatsenyuk said. “In the most negative scenario for Ukraine, losses during the first year may reach $7 billion, not only because of sanctions but also because of the Kremlin’s aggressive policy.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-08/ukraine-says-it-s-tightening-encirclement-of-rebels.html

[DeSwiss]

64. Ukraine's turn......

- There's a feedback loop at work here, and no one can stop themselves.....

[dipsydoodle]

65. forgot to add......

I've no idea where those morons think their reverse feeds are derived from.

3 months to winter.................

[DeSwiss]

66. Well, for one they can learn from the Swiss!

- I think he was saying that when he's in traffic jams he likes to pop popcorn and share it with his fellow commuters.


Those Swiss......