Another danger for Croatian agriculture.
Leaders of HDSSB, a regional party covering Slavonia and Baranja, said in Osijek that the lumpy skin disease in cattle, after many other previous problems, will be the final blow for many large-scale and family farms in Slavonia, reports Index.hr on August 14, 2016.
Party president Dragan Vulin said at a press conference that the disease, although it has not yet appeared in Croatia, would have major repercussions on Croatian agricultural production. He added that the implementation of preventive vaccination drive, which has recently started in five counties, would result in extensive financial damages, because producers would not be able to market their good during the first 28 days after vaccination, and then, during the next 12 months, their prices would be much lower than usual.
Vulin said that in 2003 there were 65,000 dairy farms in Croatia, but today there are less than 8,000 of them. He explained it as largely a consequence of the fact that the state and all previous governments have not protected domestic agricultural production. They allowed low purchase prices, which caused farms to go bankrupt due to unsustainable production.
Speaking about the recent debate between leaders of HDZ and SDP, Andrej Plenković and Zoran Milanović, Vulin said that during the two-hour debate, just one minute of time was devoted to agricultural policies, which just demonstrated how much both the left and the right care about agriculture and certain regions of Croatia. “We should take matters into our own hands and not allow agricultural policies to be determined by people from Metković or Zagreb. Otherwise, this area could one day be deserted”, said Vulin.
Prefect of Osijek-Baranja County Vladimir Šišljagić said that the Ministry of Agriculture had decided to solve this issue in a selective way, because preventive vaccinations began on 8 August in the five counties of which three are in Slavonia, while in the rest of Croatia cattle must vaccinated by 30 September.
He pointed out that the Ministry did not adopt necessary regulations on how to compensate financial damages that will hit family farms, because after the vaccination of cattle, they will have to obey special rules for transport and placement of meat and dairy products on the market, and their cattle and their products will not be able to be exported to the EU markets. He also announced that he would soon discuss the issue with outgoing Agriculture Minister Davor Romić.
