Summary of newspapers of the previous day – 30.5. 2011

Czech and Moravian vine-growers can plant out 1000 hectares of vineyards

Czech and Moravian vine-growers can still plant out 1000 hectares of vineyards. The Czech Republic has not spent rights for their outplanting yet. Vine-growers can buy the rights at the Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture for about 50 000 crowns for hectare. Jan Hajda (ČSSD) said it to journalists today. According to the Czech Statistic Office, there were 16 290 hectares of vineyards in the Czech Republic in 2009.

Food Inspection enlarges extraordinary check of fresh vegetable

A central director of SZPI (State Agricultural and Food Inspection) decided on an enlargement of extraordinary areal checks of fresh food throughout the territory of the Czech Republic today. In following two weeks, 260 samples of fresh vegetable will be taken. The samples are taken in all kinds of vegetable, not only in bio-cucumbers. A result of the checks will be a surveillance of Escherichia coli O104 contamination state on the food market of the Czech Republic. Therefore also vegetable will be sampled which comes from different countries from the risky ones (Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark), for example Romania, Bulgaria, but also from the Czech Republic.

Minister Fuksa enorces new stricter economy rules for fight with erosion

Erosion in the Czech Republic endangers almost 45 % of the total acreage of arable land; therefore the Minister of Agriculture Ivan Fuksa strived for stricter rules of right agricultural practice, so called GAEC on erosion-endangered land, which come in force from the 1st of July, 2011. According to the last analyses, in the worse possible scenario, erosion could damage as many as 21 million tonnes of land per year which can be expressed financially as damage for 4.3 billion crowns. In the fight against erosion, the most effectual tools, except the right farming, is also renewal of the landscape with recovery of balks, groups of trees with bushes, wetland, and acceleration of reparcelling.

Switzerland: Drought makes problems to cereals

Growths of cereals suffer from drought in Switzerland, too. Swiss Agricultural Union (SBV) had to revise in its second crop estimation almost all expected amount downwards. Only yields of wheat spelt remain approximately on the same level. SBV evaluates the yield potential of most products as rather substandard. However, not in case of wheat spelt; its yields are expected like in past years.