No more postponements
The very serious problem of the uncontrolled increase in wildlife must be resolved as soon as possible without delaying any further. To reiterate it is Coldiretti Molise, engaged in these days in a series of organizational meetings with its members across the entire regional territory. The problem of damage caused by wildlife therefore continues to be one of the major critical issues that regional agriculture and livestock farming are suffering and which risks causing the collapse of the entire agricultural sector "which in Molise - states the Director of Coldiretti Molise, Aniello Ascolese – represents one of the main driving forces of the regional economy”.
Skyrocketing production costs
The problems affecting agriculture are various and all of great importance, brought to its knees by the Covid emergency first and by the subsequent Russian-Ukrainian conflict afterwards, which caused production costs to skyrocket. An even more dramatic situation when added to the impossibility of producing as wild boars increasingly harvest the fruit of the work of farmers and breeders. “According to a rough estimate – states Ascolese – there are over 40.000 wild boars in Molise, a number far from the two animals per square kilometer indicated for maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. A real and very serious emergency against which Coldiretti is fighting with all possible means".
The selector controllers in action
Proof of this is the activation, at the instigation of the Organisation, of specific courses which have made it possible to train and qualify as many as 184 selecontrollers in the region: subjects authorized to intervene at the request of the owners or managers of the land where the presence of these ungulates is detected . “But the damage caused by wild boars does not stop only at those of an economic nature because the overpopulation of these wild animals – continues the Director of Coldiretti – exponentially increases the risk of propagation of Psa (African swine fever) of which they are the greatest speakers".
African swine fever
For this reason, last November, at the request of Coldiretti Molise, a meeting was held at the Prefecture of Campobasso, in which all the subjects interested in the problem took part, including the Extraordinary Commissioner for African Swine Fever, Dr. Vincenzo Caputo, and the Molise Region, represented by the Regional Councilor for Agriculture, Salvatore Micone. On that occasion, Commissioner Caputo invited the Molise Region to quickly draw up a control plan for the species; a document of which to date, despite the availability shown there by the Councillor, there is no trace, with the increasingly high risk that PSA will also reach our territories causing enormous damage to livestock farming, as well as creating heavy restrictions on free movement of people. After more than two months, in the absence of concrete actions, Coldiretti Molise will evaluate further trade union actions to be implemented to protect agricultural and livestock entrepreneurs, in order to allow them to carry out their work normally to safeguard their income company and in the interest of the entire community (source: Coldiretti Molise).