Summary of newsmakers of the previous day - 19.7.2007

ÚOHS fined poultry breeders for cartel

The Office for the Protection of Competition (ÚOHS) in its first-grade legitimate decision imposed a sanction in total sum 14 208 million crowns for non-permissible cartel agreement to seven producers of poultry. On the 13th December, 2006 in Jevišovice Competitors Agrodružstvo Jevišovice, the Agricultural cooperative Petřín, the Agricultural cooperative “Roštýn”, ZEVA CHLÍSTOVICE, Inc., Sušárna Pohořelice, Ltd., Karlov, Inc., and Agroprodukt, Ltd. agreed on a common strategy of setting sale price of slaughter chickens effective from the 1st January, 2007. An aim was to reach gradually the price at least 20,- CZK per 1 kilogram of live weight in I. class of quality; especially at the most significant common consumer, the company Kostelecké uzeniny, Inc.

33 000 people spend their holiday on farm; interest grows just slightly

About 33 000 people are allured by countryside holiday on farm close to nature this year. It is an estimation of an analytic company Mag Consulting. The interest in holiday stays in the Czech countryside increases only slightly. According to data of the Czech Statistic Office approximately 26 000 vacationists visited Czech countryside in 2000; last year the number was 30 000. Roughly one third is foreigners. However, an analyst of tourism Jaromír Beránek supposes that the interest in rural and agricultural tourism will increase more significantly in the future than it is now. By ten years the number of tourists in the country could have been doubled.

Brussels orders: new protected territories will come into being

New protected territories will come into being in Highland (Vysočina). Besides Protected Landscape Areas (CHKO) it will be other natural localities of European significance called Natura 2000. The change is connected with creation of a system of these areas in the entire Czech Republic. The reason is harmonization of norms of conservation with European law. “There are 56 such areas in the region besides CHKOs. By six years we will have had to secure protection of these areas and the care fore them”, Miloš Vystrčil, a hetman of the region said to Deník.

H5N1: Poultry died in other way than a regulation ordered

Hundreds of soldiers and firemen who were on the till this time the most extensive liquidation of animals in the Czech Republic due to the dangerous virus H5N1 acted in conflict with a methodology which the State Veterinary Administration had issued for cases of occurrence of bird flu. Soon after outbreak of the disease it appeared that a manual which engaged units had disposable can not be kept. According to the manual approved also by the safety counsel of government, the owners should cope with bird flu themselves in breeding up to 50 thousand of pieces of poultry. That was the case of almost all breedings which were liquidated last days.