Egyptian Agriculture Minister Ezz Eddin Abo Setit said on Wednesday that his ministry is investigating a crisis caused by imported tomato seeds which are infected with the leaf curl virus.
Abo Setit pointed out that the company that imported the seeds had obtained prior approval from the ministry’s Committee for the Examination and Certification of Seeds.
The ministry is currently verifying the existence of the infection mentioned in the complaints of farmers in several governorates.
The tomato seeds, a total of 331 kg seeds of class 023, were imported from four different countries: Brazil, Thailand, China and Laos, according to the sources.