It is late already and there is no money for building a fence against ASF in Europe

At the last meeting of the Council on Agriculture of the EU European Commissioner Vityanis Andryukaitis denied the requirements of Denmark, Greece and Poland, which asked for more funding to fight the disease that threatens the very existence of European pig producers. According to the official the European Commission has invested more than 50 million euros in the fight against ASF since 2013, but it is the member states that take measures against its spreading, pigua.info reported.

First of all, the Polish Minister of Agriculture Krzysztof Jurgiel and his Danish colleague Esben Lunde Larsen stand for the increase of funds for combating ASF. Poland requires co-financing the construction of several thousand kilometers of protective fences along the eastern border with Ukraine and Belarus to stop the migration of wild boars, which are the main culprits of the spread of the virus. The project is estimated at more than 56 million euros.

In turn, the Danish Minister of Agriculture proposed the creation of an international group of experts to develop a supranational plan for effective control of animal diseases in Europe. Danes insistently call for the targeted use of mobile fences, which should stop the migration of wild boars.

Some experts already say today that the construction of a fence on the eastern border of the EU was of great significance 2-2.5 years ago, when there were only few outbreaks of ASF. "Right now, when the virus is already in Central Poland, we must think carefully about the feasibility of construction," the Minister of the Environment of Poland Henryk Kowalczyk noted. He supports the position of Andryukaitis that the fence will limit the migration of animals, and calls for a focus on effective reduction of the boar population.