Financial Compensations for Losses Due to Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy in the Czech Republic in 2001-2007

Abstract

Based on Czech legislature, the farmers whose herds were affected by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) are reimbursed for the costs associated with disease diagnosis, killing the animals and safely disposing of their carcasses, decontamination of their premises, if necessary, and compensations for the value of the animals killed and for losses due to non-materialised production. Between 2001 and 2007, a total of 1,194,743 were examined for BSE, 27 BSEpositive cases were detected and, consequently, 3,997 animals were killed and destroyed. To reduce the negative economic impact on agricultural production, farmers were compensated for selected cost items by the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic from the state budget. The costs of examination for BSE, killing of animals and destroying their carcasses, and decontamination of farms were CZK 18.9 million (9.7%), compensations for the value of the animals killed amounted to almost CZK 164.0 million (83.3%) and compensations for nonmaterialised production reached almost CZK 13.6 million (6.9%). Together with some additional costs, the total of reimbursements during the period of 2001–2007 in the Czech Republic was almost CZK 197 million. These results are discussed in comparison to rather scarce data in the international literature which reports only the total costs associated with BSE occurrence and not individual cost items by which cattle and beef producers are burdened.