The Directorate General of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development finalises the agreement with the other administrations involved, as well as direct support for the contracting of agricultural insurance for livestock farmers to make it effective.

The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment, through the Directorate General of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, has, together with the other administrations involved and after many years and several attempts that did not come to fruition due to their complexity, set up a system for the removal and destruction of carcasses of production animals in Mallorca. ‘It is one of the most urgent demands of the entire livestock sector and something they have been waiting for for years,’ said Director General Fernando Fernández. In addition to the Govern, the Consell de Mallorca and Palma City Council are also part of the system’s articulation.

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The Government launches the system for the removal and destruction of production animal carcasses in Mallorca

Since 2014, the only alternative for livestock farmers, when an animal died, was to bury it on the farm itself, an extraordinary solution provided for in the European regulation governing this issue. This burial is provided for in the Resolution of the Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Territory of 6 June 2014, which establishes a remote area throughout the territory of the Autonomous Community of the Balearic Islands, and which has been extended twice (2021 and 2023) in the absence of an alternative solution. However, Fernández explains, ‘this solution has a series of environmental limitations that, as the years have gone by, have left more and more livestock farmers unable to take advantage of it’. In this sense, the director general stresses that the solution to this issue was a question of dignity for the farmer: ‘It cannot be that our farmers have an added problem every time an animal dies’.

The system for the collection and destruction of production carcasses has several components. On the one hand, the installation of two new controlled burial cells for animal carcasses, which have been built by EMAYA and are already operational. These cells will hold the carcasses of large animals such as cows, breeding sows, rams and adult sheep. On the other hand, smaller animals (poultry, rabbits, piglets and lambs) will go to the incineration plant owned by the Consell de Mallorca and managed by TIRME.

The dead animals will be collected from the farms and transported to one of the two centres by transporters authorised in the SANDACH Register of the Conselleria de Agricultura and registered as agents and waste transporters. The Directorate General designated, through an open procedure, Natura Parc as the operator to manage all carcass collections from livestock farms that wish to do so and that have contracted agricultural insurance for the removal and destruction of carcasses. Those other farms or animal owners who have not taken out the aforementioned agricultural insurance and decide to use this removal and disposal service will be able to do so by paying the costs.

‘At the moment the service is guaranteed with the designation of an operator, which was essential to enable the agricultural insurance line, but hopefully, in a short space of time, there will be other transporters on the island who decide to carry out this function by registering as agents and transporters of animal waste’. For their part, the livestock farmers will have to have containers in which to deposit the carcasses, separated into two sizes and from which it will be easy to remove them. Finally, Natura Parc, to be able to provide the service contracted through Agroseguro, has had to adapt its operation and make a series of important investments, including a specific lorry with scales and an electronic weighing system to guarantee the traceability of the SANDACH.

All this is completed with the opening of the specific agricultural insurance line called ‘Removal and Destruction of Carcasses’. As of Monday, 20 January, livestock farmers in Mallorca can now take out this insurance policy, which covers the full cost of the service, including taxes. The price is 0.44 euros/kg, which is very competitive compared to other regions. For reference, the established price in the Canary Islands is 0.61 euros/kg.

The cost of the policy is subsidised by between 20 and 30% by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, depending on the species, and 40% by the Regional Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and the Natural Environment. In this way, the farmer will pay around 35% of the policy. Furthermore, the subsidised amounts applied per head of livestock in the Balearic and Canary Islands are 48% higher than on the mainland.

Fernández explains that ‘Agroseguro has already informed the managing bodies of the opening of the line in Mallorca. We know that the livestock farms are receiving information from the entities that collaborate in the contracting of agricultural insurance. Several days before opening the line, the Directorate General already has data from 33 farms that have communicated their intention to formalise the contract and a further 22 that have already communicated this to other Agroseguro managing bodies. This insurance is useful for the farmer and the service takes a real headache away.

The Director General emphasises that the cost of the policy to be paid by the farmer after deducting the subsidies ‘is very interesting. For example, the insurance cost for a farm with 70 cows will be 600 or 650 euros a year.

‘All that remains now is for the system to start working and for farmers to gain confidence and take up the service,’ reiterated Fernández. ‘If we manage to consolidate this system, in a short time, the option of burying corpses in the territory will decrease, a fact that, environmentally and sanitarily, will be more positive for everyone,’ he says.

Finally, the director general points out that ‘now we have to focus on the next objective. Shortly, the Conselleria will meet with the Consell de Mallorca to design an intermediate pre-treatment plant for corpses that should replace the cell system and allow everything to go to incineration’. Enabling this new step explains Fernández, ‘requires a change in the Sectoral Waste Plan in Mallorca, as well as the drafting of the project and the tender for it. As always, from the Conselleria we are willing to financially support the design and implementation of all issues that benefit the farmer’.