French farmers block roads over cow disease cull

A french farmer leads his cow in the livestock area on the eve of the annual International Agriculture Fair in Paris, Friday, Feb. 26, 2016. (AP Photo/Francois Mori) (Francois Mori/The Associated Press)

Farmers in southwest France blocked roads and set fire to bales of hay on Saturday to protest the culling of cows due to a skin disease as the government said one million cattle would be vaccinated.

French farmers have been angry over what they see as the government’s heavy-handed response to an outbreak of nodular dermatitis, widely known as lumpy skin disease.

On Friday, veterinarians slaughtered a herd of more than 200 cows in the village of Les Bordes-sur-Arize near the Spanish border after discovering a single case of the sickness. The police had to disperse angry farmers to escort in a team to carry out the culling.

Several unions have called that approach ineffective, calling for “blockades across France to put an end to this madness”.

On Saturday, dozens of tractors blocked traffic, while others were parked in front of public buildings, with farmers setting fire to bales of straw and tyres.

Nearly 150 kilometres of the A64 motorway between Bayonne and Tarbes were closed to traffic due to blockades that began late Friday.

“It’s the extermination of cows and farmers,” said Leon Thierry of hard-line farmers’ union Coordination Rurale (CR), who protested in the town of Briscous with more than a dozen farmers and around 40 tractors.

“It is out of the question that in the Pyrenees we should slaughter animals that are not sick, that are healthy, because they belong to a herd from which, supposedly, a sick animal has emerged,” he said.

Around 70 farmers sounded their horns and set off firecrackers and smoke bombs in front of the agriculture minister’s former parliamentary office in the eastern town of Pontarlier, hanging a dead calf from a tree with a sign saying “Our Animals, Our Life.”

Lumpy skin disease, which cannot be passed to humans but can be fatal for cattle, first appeared in France in June.

The official strategy to stamp out what the authorities describe as a very contagious disease has since been to slaughter all animals in affected herds, as well as the “emergency vaccination” of all cattle within a 50-km(30-mile) radius.

Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard said Saturday the government planned to vaccinate one million head of cattle in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Occitanie regions.

“In the coming weeks, we will vaccinate nearly one million animals, thereby protecting farmers,” she told Ici Occitanie radio.

Those vaccinations would be in addition to the million head of cattle that have already received the vaccine since July, the agriculture ministry told AFP.

The culls have divided agricultural unions.

Coordination Rurale and Confederation Paysanne are united against the widespread cullings and have called for a widespread vaccination campaign.

The leading FNSEA farming union supports the total culling of affected herds.