"Detection of Pepino Mosaic virus is due to vaccination of the seeds" News has come out that Russia will not allow imports of tomatoes from Uzbekistan, Turkey, Armenia, Morocco and some other countries anymore due to detection of the pepino mosaic. Speaking with a Russian fruit specialist, it seems this is all true except for the Moroccon imports. They are not able to ship their produce in fear of these developments, meaning huge amounts of produce will be lost. Tatiana Nazarova is a former Food Retail Manager and an expert on the Russian fruit market. According to her, the tomato imports to Russia are wrongly being stopped at the border: “Tomatoes from Uzbekistan, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaidjan and Belorussia are officially banned, with Morocco not being officially banned, but this country still can't export its tomatoes to Russia for the same reason: In every container that brings tomatoes to Russia the pepino mosaic virus is allegedly ‘found’. I feel these measures aren’t justified, as tomatoes that are grown in greenhouses all over the world will contain traces of the pepino mosaic virus. The reason the virus is detected is due to the produce being vaccinated as seeds, so there’s no way of getting around this detection. This includes the tomatoes grown in Russia, as I’ve done the tests on Russian produce and got the exact same results as the officials had on the imported tomatoes.”