CYPRUS’ potato growers have asked for guarantees that they will continue being subsidised by the state while not being obliged to contribute towards a “badly paying” insurance fund, the head of a potato growers’ association said yesterday.“We unanimously decided that we wanted to make contribution to the Farming Insurance Organisation (OGA) optional,” said the head of the Cyprus Potato Growers’ Coordinating Committee, Nicos Vasilas. “OGA is too expensive and gives very little money,” Vasilas said.OGA is a semi-governmental non-profit body offering financial support to farmers whose produce is damaged by natural causes... 1 comment

THE AGRICULTURE Ministry has fished out around 800kg of dead fish from the Athalassa lake in Nicosia, believed to have died ‘en masse’ due to major fluctuations in the water’s temperature. Head of the ministry’s Fisheries Department Loizos Loizides told yesterday’s Phileleftheros that the fish, belonged to the Tilapia species and were first discovered dead last Wednesday. Within six days, the department fished out around 800kg of the dead fish from the lake. ... 4 comments

AGRICULTURE ministry and farmers yesterday decided to work together to come up with ways to increase production of sheep and goat’s milk to ensure that halloumi can remain a registered Cypriot prototype.The secretary of the Cyprus Dairy Products Manufacturers Association, meanwhile, yesterday said the association’s letter to the ministry asking to withdraw its application to register the local cheese as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) product would remain “frozen” until final decisions have been made.At issue is manufacturers’ concerns whether they can live up to the halloumi prototype - which provides for the majority of halloumi to be manufactured with sheep and/or goat milk - as there wasn’t enough sheep and goat milk production... 2 comments