Compensation prices for lost/killed animals due to foot-and-mouth disease will be significantly higher, said representatives of agricultural organizations who participated in a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Compensation held on Friday afternoon, under the Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment Maria Panagiotou.
"Today's meeting was promising," said the Honorary President of PEK, Michalis Lytras. "It seems that we are going to help our people and what we want to emphasize is that only with such meetings, serious, responsible, can we deal with the problem," he added.
With outbreaks, he continued, "the problem cannot be solved and that is important."
The Honorary President of PEK said that during today's fourth meeting of the Committee, under the Minister of Agriculture, they have made significant progress on the issue of compensation and "we have raised the prices significantly", from the previous prices they had submitted to the Minister of Agriculture.
"It seems that we are progressing positively in increasing compensation for lost/killed animals" and "now we will see in another committee the issue of replacing and reactivating the units, which will remain to continue the profession," he added.
"We don't want to stop just with compensation. We want the livestock profession to be active again and there will be various meetings on how to help these people reactivate," he noted.
Mr. Lytras said that when the final approval is given by the special technical committee of the Ministry of Agriculture, these prices will be approved and we will proceed with the compensations.
Prices from veterinary services will not go down
Besides, the President of Panagrotikos Kyriakos Kailas said that their suggestions and opinions will be taken to the special committee that is the veterinary services and there the prices are not going to go down - as far as we know - but "there will be an additional revision upwards, if there is documentation".
Then, as he said, the President of the Republic will be informed next week and will announce them.
"In addition, we are moving forward with the scientific committee, headed by Stavros Malas, which will also give the incentives that will be very promising to the reactivated fellow farmers," he added.
We focus on these incentives, said Mr. Kailas, "so that they are such that the people decide, in this surrounding atmosphere and with its peculiarities".
He added that the risk run by the units is to a lesser extent due to vaccination, "but it does not mean that we have overcome the problem".
Mr. Kailas said that "foot-and-mouth disease will stay with us for a few years until we get rid of it" and added that "vaccinations are the ones that will help and continue at regular intervals with the vaccination of all animals to get the antibodies, so that they are neither contagious nor easily infected by the virus".
He said that the European regulation is clear and added that "the essence is that the Government and the President of the Republic and the Minister of Agriculture themselves want to help the people whom we had seen yesterday protesting justly, even though gatherings are something that is prohibited and we all know that the virus is more easily transmitted with these gatherings and we must avoid them."
The President of Panagrotikos also said that "people must be properly informed so that they do not worry" and added that both agricultural organizations and the Government "are working in one direction only and it is good that we are being heard".
Stating that livestock farming is a chain, Mr. Kailas said that from production to processing, 25% of the workers of Cyprus work in the primary sector and it is "a large budget, which the Government must also protect as the apple of its eye".
CNA
