EU halts immediate cull plans for Cyprus sheep & goat

The timely intervention of Cyprus’ EU Commission for Health and Consumer Protection Markos Kyprianou with new regulations could save Cyprus’s sheep and goat breeders from certain ruin by imposing a five-year moratorium on a EU court-mandated cull of up to a quarter of the island’s herds infected with scrapie.

 On September 28, the Court of Justice of the European Communities decided measures needed to be taken across the EU following the appearance of the disease, which meant that one in four sheep and goats or a total of 116.000 would be slaughtered due to scrapie fears.
According to a spokeswoman of the Commissioner in Brussels, Kyprianou is currently preparing a new regulation aimed at postponing the culling for another five years.
The proposal will shortly be submitted to a European Committee of food chain experts, comprised of all 27 EU Member States. Approval, if given, is expected by December.
The culling of the animals will leave around 10,000 tonnes of carcasses for the government to dispose, something the island is not equipped to undertake. Livestock owners say there is a major issue of loss of income and loss of profession, despite a compensation package being announced. Over 80,000 goats and 33,000 sheep on 679 farms are affected in Cyprus. The livestock does not carry the ARR genotype known to be resistant to the disease.
The aim of the EU regulation is to eradicate scrapie from affected flocks by culling animals that have susceptible genotypes. Cyprus will be the country in the EU most affected by the ruling, as 25 percent of its sheep and goats will disappear.
A five-year postponement would give Cypriot authorities time to weed out scrapie-infected goats and sheep from local herds and replace them with disease-resistant animals.

The news comes as a relief to breeders who warned that as many as 3,000 families would go broke if their livelihood is literally sent for slaughter.

That means a compensation package of as much as £30m.

President Papadopoulos had pledged financial aid in case a worst-case scenario materialises.  However, government, breeders and experts agree on is that there is no real health risk if meat or dairy products from scrapie-infected animals is consumed.

Scrapie belongs to a family of fatal diseases of the brain known as Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs) that include mad cow disease.