Jakarta, hitclubapk3 Indonesia
—
The breeders in
France
southwest blocked roads and burned piles of hay to protest the culling of cows due to skin disease, on Saturday (13/12).
They are angry at the government’s response which is considered too harsh in dealing with the outbreak of nodular dermatitis, known as lumpy skin disease.
A number of livestock unions said the move was ineffective and called for “a blockade across France to end this madness.”
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“This is the extermination of cattle and cattle breeders,” said the hard-line cattle breeders union Coordination Rurale (CR), Leon Thierry, as quoted by Le Monde.
He said this while demonstrating in the town of Briscous with more than a dozen farmers and around 40 tractors.
“There is no way in the Pyrenees that we should slaughter animals that are not sick and healthy, just because they belong to a herd that, it is said, comes from sick animals,” he added.
Earlier, on Friday (12/12), veterinarians culled a herd of more than 200 cows in the village of Les Bordes-sur-Arize near the Spanish border after one case of the disease was discovered.
As of Saturday (13/12), dozens of tractors blocked traffic, while other vehicles were parked in front of public buildings, with farmers burning piles of hay and tires.Nearly 150 km of the A64 toll road between Bayonne and Tarbes was closed due to the blockade which started on Friday (12/12) evening.
About 70 farmers honked their horns and set off firecrackers and smoke bombs in front of the former parliamentary office of the Minister of Agriculture in the eastern French city of Pontarlier.They also hung a dead calf from a tree with a sign reading “Our Animals, Our Lives.”
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However, local police had to disperse the angry farmers to escort the team carrying out the culling.
Previously, this lumpy skin disease first appeared in France in June.Although it is not contagious to humans, it can be deadly to cattle.
The official strategy to eradicate this highly contagious disease is to slaughter all the animals in an infected herd.In addition, the government implemented “emergency vaccination” of all cattle within a 50 km radius.
Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said the government plans to vaccinate one million cattle in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions, on Saturday (13/12).
“In the next few weeks, we will vaccinate almost a million animals, thus protecting farmers,” he told Ici Occitanie radio.
He also added that the vaccine would be in addition to the one million cows that had received the vaccine since July.
However, the slaughter of cattle due to skin disease has divided agricultural unions.
Coordination Rurale and Confédération Paysanne unite against the genocide and call for a broad vaccine campaign.Meanwhile, the leading farmers’ union FNSEA supports the complete slaughter of infected livestock.
(rnp/dna)
