EURO BRIEFS
EURO BRIEFS
• BRUSSELS is planning a clampdown on the rules relating to staging points for animals in transit, as it seeks to tighten disease controls after last years foot-and-mouth crisis. New proposals call for staging points to only accommodate animals from the same herd at any time, and to have a 24-hour break after disinfecting the site before more animals can come in for rest, feed and water.
• GERMANY and France have pledged to settle their differences over CAP funding before December, when final decisions on the level of farm subsidies to pay new member states have to be made. Germany, as the EUs main contributor, has sought to minimise these payments and reform the whole CAP. But France, as the main beneficiary, wants the status quo. A Franco-German summit this week decided to step up the search for common ground.
• DENMARK has reported a large outbreak of Newcastle disease in its poultry flock. The Danish Poultry Board says 66 mostly hobby farms had had the disease midweek, with 130,000 egg-laying birds slaughtered. But another 500,000 birds were held up in 3km restriction zones and would not be marketable for at least three weeks.
• FARM product values in France have fallen by just over 2% in the past two months, and by 6% over the year. The biggest change has been for sheep, which are worth 17% less than they were last year, when foot-and-mouth in the UK sent prices skywards. Cereals are also well down at 15% below year-ago levels after a 2.5% drop in June. *