MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The ban closed the Russian market to meats, fish, dairy, fruits and vegetables, as well as some other products, including nuts, from the United States, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Norway.
Prices for milk products have fallen and there is a "real crisis" in Finland that the government should address by allocating a package of financial aid to milk farmers, Yle broadcaster quotes an MTK representative as saying.
French farmers have also been affected by canceled Russian food exports. Moscow imposed an import ban on certain food products as a response to sanctions that Western countries have introduced accusing Moscow of meddling in Ukraine’s internal affairs – something that has been repeatedly denied by Russian authorities.
Russia has been boosting production volumes to fill its store shelves with local goods after it slapped the United States, the European Union and several other nations with the food import ban in August 2014.
In April 2015, Russia's Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachev expressed hope that Russia would be able to substitute at least 90 percent of food imports with domestic products in the next 2-3 years.
