Another alarm signal for food safety and the control of agricultural exports from Albania. In Croatia, a shipment of 14.7 tons of red peppers from Fier was destroyed after tests found a high presence of a fungicide that, for this product, should not have been present at all.
What the tests found
According to data from the RASFF system, the Albanian shipment was found to contain the active substance proquinazid at a level of 0.050 mg/kg.
For peppers, the permitted level of this substance is zero. After this result, the Croatian authorities decided to bury 147 quintals, or 14 tons and 700 kilograms of product.
The substance is allowed on the market, but not for this crop
Proquinazid appears on the list of plant protection products approved by the Ministry of Agriculture and is marketed in Albania under the name Talendo, with registration validity until the end of 2028.
However, according to the published information, this substance is not allowed to be used on vegetables. It is authorized for grape crops, mainly against fungal diseases such as powdery mildew. That makes it even more problematic that it ended up in a product that went to market.
Suspicions of improper use and weak controls
The presence of proquinazid in peppers raises suspicions that a preparation intended for vineyards, not vegetables, may have been used during cultivation.
The question marks do not fall only on the farmer, but also on the chain of advice and control, from agronomists to inspection structures. When such a shipment makes it all the way to export and is blocked abroad, the problem does not appear to be limited only to the plot of land.
It is not the first case
Just a few days earlier, on September 7, another quantity of peppers originating from Albania was destroyed in Croatia after tests found a high level of the pesticide acetamiprid.
In that case, the product had passed through a Macedonian trader who had bought the peppers from the Albanian farmer and tried to re-export them to Croatia. According to the available information, the trader had no knowledge of the pesticide level, while the violation was discovered by Croatian food inspectors.
New pressure on institutions
Two cases within a short period add pressure on the institutions responsible for food safety and the oversight of agricultural products in Albania.
For the Ministry of Agriculture and its subordinate structures, the issue does not end with the fact that the shipments were caught abroad. The essence of the problem remains why controls did not work before the product went to market and was presented as an Albanian export.
Repeated cases of peppers blocked in Croatia are becoming a serious test of the credibility of food control in the country.
At a time when the debate over standards, exports and institutional responsibility remains open, the case also raises direct questions about the political leadership of the sector, from the Minister of Agriculture to the technical links that should prevent such scandals.