NEGOTIATIONS between the Cyprus Cattle Farmers’ Organisation (POA) and the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Christodoulos Photiou, yesterday reached a dead end, with the farmers protesting outside the Presidential Palace as the Cabinet met in weekly session.
The farmers arrived at the Presidential Palace at around 11.30am under police supervision.
Talks between the two sides during the meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture on Tuesday were not a success, and neither was yesterday’s meeting, prompting the farmers to take their protest to the Presidential Palace, during the Cabinet meeting.
Cattle farmers yesterday sat down with Agriculture Ministry representatives in an effort to reach a deal regarding the amount of compensation they are to be given following this year’s drought.
The animal farmers are unhappy with the €8.5 million allocated to their industry and are instead demanding €17 million in compensation.
“We will come down will all the means available to cattle farming and it won’t just be for a day. This I stress. We will take dynamic measures that could last days,” Cattle Farmers’ (POA) Association president Savvas Evangelou said on Tuesday.
In an effort to reach a compromise solution, the Agriculture Ministry sent word to the farmers’ meeting requesting a meeting to discuss the issue at 7.30am yesterday.
POA announced their plans for indefinite action on Tuesday, until their requests for financial aid for their sector following the loss of income from the drought amounting to a sum of €17 million.
Upon completion of yesterday morning’s meeting and after no settlement was reached, the farmers’ vehicles gathered at the entrance of Nicosia and headed to the Presidential Palace. They handed in a memorandum with their demands to the Undersecretary to the President Titos Christofides.
The Director of the Department of Agriculture Christodoulos Photiou chaired the technical committee that examined the demands of all the farming sectors and decided separately for each sector the amount of losses. “There was a thorough discussion of the issue and it appears that there is a difference, regarding the procedure of calculating the amount of damage,” Photiou said.
Photiou said that the issue of the technical committee “has worn out” and explained that they had met with all the productive sectors, with which they have agreed over the amount of the losses; “the only ones we have not agreed with are the cattle farmers,” Photiou said.
“The procedure is defined and determined and has been announced to all the productive sectors and to all the rural organisations and we have come to agreement with everyone except the cattle herders, who consider that the procedure we followed is not a good one.”
But the President of POA Savvas Evangelou unleashed an attack against Photiou for his “hostile” attitude towards the farmers, giving as an example Photiou’s reaction on the issue of registering halloumi under the Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme.
Photiou made it clear that he has been appointed Chairman of the Commission for halloumi, adding that the advisory committee for halloumi unanimously made suggestions to the Minister of Agriculture and has accepted the suggestions of the technical Committee.
He explained that the technical committee was made up of four different departments and services and rejected the farmers’ claims that he had something against them. “There is nothing like that going on and I declare it officially and responsibly,” Photiou said.
But Evangelou said: “the technical committee with a hostile attitude cut €12 million from us, for an amount which we received last year. Since last year, the price of animal feed doubled and we had a cost of €15 million.
“We were able to get from the consumer and the manufacturers €12 million with a remaining three million in damage to the producer, and they came along and deducted it claiming it was income.
“These things are unacceptable, these things are hostile,” Evangelou said.
