Summary of newspapers of the previous day – 18. 5. 2009

Farmers trouble, they fear from harvest

Farmers have a problem with dry and warm spring weather. Owing to insufficient seed emergence, damages in spring crop go to hundreds of thousand crowns. “Growths are scarce and rain will not help any more”, a director of the Agrarian Chamber in Svitavy Josef Gracias explains. Spring crops and poppy in the region Litomyšl and Jevíč are in the worse situation. “A harvest will be lower roughly by one third against the last years”, Graciac estimates. However, the situation is not much better in fodder crops. “Growths are scarce as quality is meanwhile bad”, the director of Agrarian Chamber adds. He asserts that it has negatively influence animal production.

Unobtrusive “charm” of vaccination

A big nation-wide event – a vaccination against catarrhal sheep fever – remained on the edge of attention effaced by a new (Mexican) flu. It proceeds against a plan and by the end of April already all cattle, sheep and goats have been vaccinated. Now the vaccination continues on in older youngs, i.e. calves, lambs and kids. On base of monitoring we can confirm that the virus of catarrhal sheep fever virus (bluetongue) circulates and infects animals on the territory of our republic. Thanks to this years favourable conditions, insects transferring the disease occur in plenty in the nature. Nevertheless, thanks to the vaccination animals clinical symptoms do not develop and thereby no losses and gaps in productions are recorded.

Bursík: Commission for sanitation is overpriced by 75 billions

According to the former vice-premier Martin Bursík, the historically biggest public commission for removal of old ecological damages is considerably overpriced. A difference between what would be enough and with what the Ministry of Finances counts is according his opinion 75 billion. The ex-minister of environment stated that sanitation of contaminated land would cost only 40 billion, not 115 as the mentioned ministry announced. “The real price is lower. According to our estimations it can be maximally 40 billion crowns, not 115”, Bursík said to Aktuálně.cz.

Olma will reduce basic capital by almost 234 mil. CZK owing to loss

Olomouc dairy works Olma will reduce its basic capital from the present 236,2 million crown to 2,4 million crown. A value of the present thousand-crown stock of Olma will decrease to ten crown. The second most important Czech producer of milk products will use the sum corresponding to the reduction of basic capital to cover losses from past years. Today´s general meeting of the company decided on it. From this year´s beginning, Olma is managed by the group Agrofert Holding of an entrepreneur Andrej Babiš.