Representatives of the professional agricultural organizations of Castilla y León (OPA) requested include problems generated by wolves and wildlife in the livestock and agricultural farms of the Community among the issues that the President of the Council, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, will address in the next meeting with the head of the Central Executive, Pedro Sánchez.
This is one of the main issues on which the Regional Agrarian Council held this Tuesday to give continuity to the meeting it had ten days ago with Fernández Mañueco, with whom it has already agreed to bring two other priorities for the Community at the bilateral meeting with Sánchez: work for a fair CAP and claim the importance of water in agriculture and livestock farming through current and future hydrological plans.
González Corral committed to transmitting the new takeover requirements to the President of the Council to analyze them within the autonomous government. “This topic has just been raised, I will immediately convey it to the President and I am confident that such topics will be included in his arguments,” she said.
Concretely, the representative of the UPA-COAG Alliance, Aurelio González, declared that seven daily wolf attacks to which he added those caused by wild fauna where the problem is “much more serious” since in addition to the “significant damage”, there are 27 daily traffic accidents caused by these animals in Castile and León.
“There is a lack of control because there are fewer and fewer hunters and what’s more it’s a reservoir of possible diseases to our livestock, we are very concerned about this issue”, insisted Aurelio González, who requested a joint plan with Environment “to try to carry out these population controls where necessary and with the necessary species.”
“That wild animals, especially the wolf, do not kill the work of the livestock sector, that is enough for us, that they let us work,” said the regional president of Asaja, Donaciano Dujo.
Voles
The scourge of voles and its “oversizing” in areas where there was none was another of the problems that the OPA transferred to the advisor to whom they asked to relax the regulations to increase the burning of stubble and reservoirs, after which González Corral assured that “fortunately” the situation “has improved considerably”.
They also asked González Corral for his “maximum connection and concern” for the livestock sector, especially in terms of health, with “economic aid” to the most needy farms and vigilance “to give us a length ahead of time when things go wrong,” he says. .
The advisor reported at this stage that the Commission has already started the emergency procedure for the acquisition of vaccines against bluetongue to contact producers “as soon as possible” for the distribution of the injectable which, today ‘today, is voluntary.
The intention of the Council is to proceed with the vaccination of the sheep herd for more than three months in the areas closest to the outbreak in Portugal, in particular the veterinary units of Arenas de San Pedro, Candeleda and El Barco de Ávila, in the province of Ávila, and in all the provinces of Salamanca and Zamora.
In the case of UCCL, its coordinator, Jesús Manuel González Palacín, placed particular emphasis on the need to lower the environmental requirements of the current CAP and asked to “open the debate” on who should receive the aid that, if any, he calls for as a priority for farmers.
Added to this is the need to urgently renegotiate the preferential agreement between Europe and Ukraine impose customs duties on corn, barley and wheat, or, failing that, put in place aid as in Romania “to compensate for the losses they generate”. “We don’t want the war in Ukraine to ruin us,” Dujo added in this regard.
The representatives of the OPA agreed to highlight the new climate of dialogue established within the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, as guaranteed by González Corral who committed to convening councils regional agrarian authorities within a maximum period of two months to try to obtain “dialogue” with the sector.
In this context, the Regional Agrarian Council took the opportunity to explain the agreements of the sectoral conference held last week, which focused on aspects related to animal health, such as aid intended for livestock affected by hemorrhagic disease epizootic disease (EHE) and the detection of new bluetongue serotypes.
González Corral once again regretted that the ministry does not contribute 4.3 million euros for Castilla y Leóncompared to the almost 16 million that the Council will allocate with its own funds to the agricultural operations concerned for 2023 and confirmed that the aid will continue in 2024.
