The communication from the Voice of Livestock Farmers has improved — but their insistence on halting culls at infected premises continues to raise questions.
The figures being published put the total number of animals culled so far at around 70,000 — sheep, goats, pigs, cattle. Even setting aside the government’s firm position that halting the culls would trigger serious economic and other consequences from the EU, the actual demands of these people raise genuine puzzles.
Do they want the culls stopped to save their animals? Understandable — but some of them have already said more than once, “they’ve killed me,” meaning their own herd has already been destroyed. And yet those same farmers, along with their colleagues, keep shouting “don’t cull our animals.” Are they speaking on behalf of other farmers? Ones who aren’t part of the Voice?
We haven’t seen any new faces taking a leading role in the Voice since it started. And it’s been two months or more. Do all these people still have infected animals that the Veterinary Services are holding off culling to avoid inflaming tensions? Probably not — because apart from the ongoing case involving a priest’s animals in Pachna, no other pending cull procedure has been made public. So whose interests is the Voice actually fighting for? And given that 70,000 animals have already been destroyed, what logic would lead the state to say “no more culls if new cases emerge”?
Yet listening to Neofytou and Petrou yesterday, one notices that their talk is increasingly — and more forcefully — turning to the compensation they expect from the state.
When the Council of Ministers approved the compensation package, the farming organisations reacted positively. The Voice, too, gave the impression that the general framework was satisfactory, with the only remaining question being how much each individual farmer would actually receive.
But yesterday, the statements from Neofytou and Petrou suggested something else is going on with the compensation claims of specific Voice members. Asked what their problem with the compensation was, Neofytou offered the example of a livestock trader who moves, he said, 50,000 animals a year — and when the Veterinary Services checked to determine his compensation, they found that “a thousand animals are missing.” He didn’t explain what “missing” means. Not in the pen, not culled for the fever — so where are they? Illegally moved to a slaughterhouse or another premises? Even if some of those animals were infected? Did those thousand animals ever exist at all?
And if they can’t be accounted for, how can their supposed owner be compensated for them?
Petrou, speaking to CNA, also said one of their demands was that “affected farmers be properly compensated.” She called the figures presented by the authorities “non-existent,” and said the services needed to address compensation for farmers who had lost animals through theft or death — because, she claimed, “there are reports they won’t be compensated.” She then added: “Fine them for the missing animals and compensate them for the ones that were culled.”
Does any of that make sense to you? Because as Petrou herself says, there are animals missing due to theft or other deaths — not FMD culls — so how can anyone seriously demand compensation for those animals as though they were victims of the outbreak? They don’t show up in the Veterinary Services’ accounts, so why on earth should their supposed owners be paid out? If no one can explain what happened to the “missing” animals — and we’re apparently talking about significant numbers — on what basis should the state pay compensation for culls it never carried out?
Petrou says “fine them for the missing animals and compensate them” — as if those unaccounted animals were culled for foot-and-mouth disease. That doesn’t hold up, Ms Petrou.
Someone needs to give us a proper explanation before the day is out — the Voice members, the farming organisations, the Veterinary Services, and the Agriculture Ministry. The agreement was to compensate farmers for animals that were verifiably culled to contain the spread of the virus. Not to pay out for animals that have simply vanished.
