Croatian producers abide by all the necessary measures and use in production only what is allowed, so there is no reason to fear that vegetables are contaminated with Escherichia coli or that citizens will get infected if they eat domestic vegetables, Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic said on Friday.
He was visiting a family farm in Sijanec near Varazdin, northern Croatia, where he tasted a cucumber and cabbage salad. He did the same earlier in Sveta Nedjelja and Virovitica to show that domestic vegetables are safe.
Cobankovic said the services in charge had stepped up control of vegetable imports and that they were controlling the vegetables in stores so that citizens knew the quality of the vegetables on offer and could buy healthy Croatian produce.
The minister said this would help vegetable farmers, as demand for their produce had dropped in the wake of recent developments with E. coli.
He said Croatian vegetable farmers were constantly investing in production, but that they should unite in cooperatives and jointly venture on the market. He also underlined the importance of applying European standards in order to make Croatian goods competitive.
