According to breeders, and despite Marc Fesneau’s statements, vaccine delivery times are too long in the face of this “blue tongue disease” which is spreading in France.
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![Hervé Lapie, general secretary of the FNSEA and farmer in the Marne, February 1, 2024. (STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)](https://www.francetvinfo.fr/pictures/uTbSJ8aHUbUy5UW1_dBfiaz5lGU/0x215:5118x3091/432x243/2024/02/23/000-34hf2w4-65d84603f2808069198239.jpg)
Farmers persist. The Minister of Agriculture “said this morning that vaccination had started, but it was delayed”declared Hervé Lapie, general secretary of the National Federation of Agricultural Trade Unions (FNSEA), on Tuesday, August 20 on franceinfo. He was reacting to the comments of Marc Fesneau, guest on the 8:30 a.m. franceinfo, who claimed that talking about a delay in the vaccination campaign was “excessive”. He makes some “communication”retorts Hervé Lapie, also a farmer in the Marne, “I have two breeders still in the department who have been waiting for vaccines for four or five days and we still don’t have the vaccines that arrived on the farms.”
The Minister of Agriculture assures: “The average time to receive the vaccine is around 24 hours at 72 hours”. And even a week of delivery, “It doesn’t seem crazy” for Marc Fesneau, “when you know what vaccine production is”The minister said, however: “understand the concern and impatience of breeders.”
“The ministry had communicated saying that from the 12th August, there were vaccines available that were ordered and that it would arrive in the farmyards. It is the 20th August and we are currently lacking far too many vaccines in the bovine and ovine sectors”criticizes Hervé Lapie. The representative of the majority union in the world of agriculture warns about “the emergency” to supply the breeders. According to him, the problem does not come from the vaccine transporters who had to manage a weekend of August 15 and a “cold chain to be respected” but the government which “communicated too quickly”.
NOW, “We must speed updemands the general secretary of the FNSEA, and we urgently need to order additional doses because we have a collective responsibility” facing an illness “which goes very very quickly”. On this point, Marc Fesneau indicated on franceinfo that the government had “resumed an order for 1 million vaccines for sheep and 5 million vaccines for cattle.”