Funds are coming for breeders damaged by bluetongue: 13.5 million in favor of Laore in the budget variation approved yesterday by the Sardinian Regional Council.
"A first step to provide answers but insufficient to compensate for the real damage of a disease that is plaguing Sardinian companies", underlines Coldiretti, according to which at least 25 million are needed.
«The funds currently planned – declare Battista Cualbu and Luca Saba, president and director of Coldiretti Sardegna – are only sufficient to cover the losses for the approximately 40 thousand dead sheep, considering that the Region intends to cover the damage with 300 euros per head, but the lost income must still be taken into account».
The disease, in fact, also heavily affects the animals that survive, "causing a drastic drop in productivity, reduction in milk quantities and a strong impact on the lambing year". All things to take into consideration, "significantly increasing the allocation".
The association also relaunches the creation of a crisis unit and a dedicated task force that speeds up and coordinates compensation procedures for breeders. And it calls for the implementation of a "structured plan to combat a disease that recurs cyclically every year", because "we cannot always act in an emergency".
(Online Union)