A newly formed association representing livestock farmers and butchers protesting against mass culling under Cyprus’s foot-and-mouth disease response will meet on Tuesday to decide its next steps, if President Nikos Christodoulides has not responded to a request for a meeting by the end of Monday.
Stella Petrou, spokesperson for the association, “The Voice of Livestock Farmers,” said no response had been received so far. The association, which has approximately 200 members, announced last Wednesday its intention to seek an urgent meeting with the President to raise serious issues facing the sector, with particular emphasis on the management of foot-and-mouth disease.
The association’s demands, set out in its announcement, include an emergency vaccination strategy where scientifically feasible instead of immediate culling, a mandatory second laboratory test before any culling decision along with the option for independent confirmation of results, and targeted isolation measures instead of blanket culling of entire herds where possible.
A delegation from the association met on Saturday with Stavros Malas, Head of the Special Scientific Committee for the Reconstruction and Upgrading of the Livestock Sector and President of the Cyprus Institute. Petrou said the delegation was briefed on the progress of measures to contain the disease and on plans for restoring livestock numbers after the virus is eliminated. She said the delegation was told there was no room to deviate from the European protocol measures already being applied.
Petrou noted that restoring livestock numbers was a matter for a much later stage. The association’s current focus, she said, was on the culling of herds and on compensation, adding that a number of farmers were experiencing difficulties due to the volume of documentation required to submit compensation applications.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment said on Monday morning that no new positive results had emerged beyond the 110 cases announced last Saturday, which followed two new cases at sheep and goat units in Athienou.
(information from CNA)