Eastern European countries join forces to fight ASF
Ministers of Agriculture from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the Veterinary General of Poland agreed to combine forces to fight African Swine Fever (ASF).
This was agreed at a meeting on Wednesday, July 30. All parties met in Vilnius to discuss the outbreak of ASF in the region and agreed to establish a joint working group. Jonas Milius, head of the Lithuanian State Food and Veterinary Service, will lead the group, announced the Ministry of Agriculture.
“ASF doesn’t recognise state borders and we need to address this issue from the point of Europe as a whole and not from the point of four countries,” said Virginija Baltraitiene, Minister of Agriculture Lithuania.
All parties of the meeting agreed to ask for financial support from the European Commission (EC). According to the ministry, the EC will be asked to provide funds for ASF medical research and a possible creation of vaccine.
Milius also hoped for larger compensations from the EC for costs related to fighting ASF.
“Now we are compensated for 50% of all costs amounting at least 9 million litas till now,” said Millius to Lithuanian business news web vz.lt.
“We’d like to be compensated in full and we’ll apply to the EC for this reason,” added Milius.
All parties agreed to ask the EC to help farmers in regions affected by ASF.
Join 18,000+ subscribers
Subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated about all the need-to-know content in the pigsector, three times a week.
