Summary of newsmakers of the previous days - 17. – 19. 7. 2009

Proposal of new standards of Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions emphasizes protection of land, water and biodiversity

A proposal of ten new standards of Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) protects land, water and biodiversity of landscape. In case of approval, fulfillment of these standards will be obligatory for all farmers spending subsidies from the 1st of January 2010. The proposal, which represents tend standards, is focused on land protection (protection against erosion, maintenance of organic mass content, etc.), water protection (protection zones around water, use of water for irrigation), and protection of landscape and biodiversity (protection of grass growths, of landscape elements, a fight against invasive herbs).

Rains slow down harvest and endanger crop

Waterlogged land does not allow cereal harvesters to go on fields in Hustopeče region. Farmers have a fear that they will forfeit other part of already bad crop. We have no combine-harvester on fields; all fifteen stand. Jiří Vávra, a director of an agricultural company Zemos complained on Thursday. The firm from Velké Němčice belongs to those to whom heavy rains in last days very complicated starting harvest. “It is bad; wet terrain does not allow combine-harvests in cereal. Rape is ripe and it is possible to harvest it, however, we can not go on the field. Meanwhile, the growths do lie, nevertheless, we have already recorded first small losses in rape”, Vávra admitted who has over two thousand hectares of winter wheat on fields.

Rivers are damages not only by factories but also by carp breeders

Six rivers stay very strongly contaminated in the Czech Republic. New sewerage plants will have not been ready by 2010. The Czech Republic will be likely fined by Brussels for it. A red colour, marking the worse contamination grade, labels only two bigger rivers in the ČR – north-Bohemian Bílina, polluted mainly by a giant chemical factory Chemopetrol in Litvínov, and south-Bohemina Lužnice. In this case the resource of harmful substances and pollution is not paradoxically any factory, but local pond managers. In spite of fish meat is felt as a healthy food connected with clear nature, just the too intensive, almost industrial breeding of carps deteriorates water in the river Lužnice.

MZe: 2000 hectares of forests accrued last year in the Czech Republic

Forest acreage in the Czech Republic increased approximately by 2000 hectares to 2,653 million hectares last year. A decisive share in it was continuing forestation of agriculturally unused land. The Ministry of Agriculture presented in a Report on State of Forests and Forests Management of the Czech Republic in 2008, which it is going to put forward to the government on Monday. The economic situation of forest managers significantly worsened year-on-year, the report publishes. The main cause was a significant decrease of prices of raw wood owing to sale crisis. An average profit of forest owners including subsidies for management decreased by thirds to 667 crowns year-on-year last year.