Poultry breeders demand resignation of the Head of the Food Safety Agency

Poultry breeders staged a protest outside the building of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency (BFSA) before the discussions of bird flu problems on 5^th of November. So far, over 20 outbreaks of the disease have been reported in Bulgaria.

The protest is peaceful, only with posters asking for the resignation of the BFSA Head, Damyan Iliev. There are only representatives of companies and farms for waterfowl. In their words, 10,000 people will be out of work because of the measures taken against bird flu.

Plamen Slavov, a vet from the city of Yambol: We want the immediate resignation of the food saferty agency management for inadequate and indiscriminate actions - issuing of half-orders, indiscriminate attitidue to people, failure to pay for the culled animals on time. Currently, two large hatcheries in the country have hatched ducklings that are in boxes, and they are not allowed to be be placed on the farm – in practice they may die because of this indiscriminate attitude.

The Food Safety Agency management negotiates with farm producers and the outcome of the meeting are expected later in the afternoon.