Strengthening of wild boar culling by the Territorial Operational Groups (GOT) thanks to the support of the Army, provision of contributions to companies for the construction of fences, monitoring of the movements of wild boars with drones by the Civil Protection.
These are some of the measures announced by the Lombardy Region Agriculture Councilor heard in the Agriculture Commission at the request of the Action-Italia Viva group.
The Councilor first outlined an updated picture of the situation: in the Pavia area and in the Ticino Park, the first outbreak of ASF in Lombardy, announcing that the infection here would be under control. Unfortunately the virus is moving eastwards, in the provinces of Lodi and Cremona where there is a very high concentration of farms and slaughterhouses and this causes concern in the supply chain which has already suffered significant damage from the closure of important outlet markets such as the North American ones. The identification of the virus in the Emilian provinces of Piacenza and Parma has caused great apprehension even if at the moment there are no cases recorded on farms.
The killing of wild boars and other large game has long been strengthened and thanks to the rules contained in the recent Government Agriculture Decree, the Provincial Police and hunting associations will soon be joined by the military authorized for this purpose. The same decree authorizes the Civil Protection to intervene in the identification and disposal phase of the carcasses and in monitoring the movements of the game which will also be carried out with the aid of drones equipped with infrared cameras. Finally, the decree allows the suspension of mortgage payments for those companies affected by the infection.
The Lombardy Region – the councilor specified – will intervene when the decree is converted into law with its own amendments that make the actions to contain large-scale fauna through which ASF is spread more effective. In agreement with the Extraordinary Commissioner of the PSA Vincenzo Caputo, the areas of the territory still immune from the contagion will be surrounded with special barriers located near the motorway surfaces.
The Councilor also underlined how the Lombardy Region is working to ensure that the European Commission adopts a more selective line by distinguishing cases of contagion in the wild from those reported within farms: for over a year now, no animals have been reported in Lombardy. infected breeding and it is therefore not reasonable to confine entire portions of territory, with the imaginable economic consequences, simply for the discovery of infected wild boars.
During the debate, councilors from the Action-Italia Viva and Democratic Party groups intervened and expressed concern about the extension of the disease to the areas with the highest density of livestock, hoping that the Lombardy Region will intervene to compensate the operators for the economic damage suffered and to identify promptly and repress attempts at speculation on the price of pork which have already been reported by several parties.
Finally, the Councilor announced that an important government-level summit on the topic of PSA will take place tomorrow in Brussels and that he will report the decisions taken at European level to the Commission as soon as possible.
© All rights reserved
