Minister of Agriculture Alexander Tkachev announced that Russia does not and will not produce genetically modified products. "Our president has long spoken on this issue: we do not have GMOs, and we will never engage in pseudo-production and in fact it is not very useful for health," RIA Novosti quoted Tkachev as saying.. He added that GMOs are widely distributed in agriculture in China and the US, as these products help to obtain large yields and, accordingly, high profits. In 2016, the president signed a law banning the growing of GMO plants and animals in Russia, excluding scientific purposes. It is also forbidden to import genetically modified organisms and products into the country.