The old model of livestock farming cannot continue and amendments should be made, Head of the Scientific Committee for the reconstruction and upgrading of the livestock sector, Stavros Malas, told the Cyprus News Agency on Monday evening. As regards the FMD cases in the west district of Nicosia, he spoke of bad practices for animal movement.
Malas who took part in a meeting of the epidemiological group, told CNA that when a farm has lambs and goats and no proper disinfection takes place and at the same time swines are loaded on the trucks, then ”you leave a small outbreak behind you, and also a problem”.
Malas said that testing took place in 490 units of which 101 came back positive.
“It is close to 20-22%, which is the percentage we expected,” he noted.
Malas said once again that the way the livestock areas were organised, leads to conditions for the spread of the FMD and it becomes worse than it should be.
In relation to livestock, Malas clarified that the Scientific Committee is not discussing replenishing livestock from abroad but how to fix the issue in the domestic market.
“We believe that the best way is to build livestock farming on the basis of local breeds, which are also more resistant,” he explained.
He noted that if the virus is contained, there is enough livestock in our country to replace it.