FMD Vaccine Priority In Bantul For Milk-Producing Cows

Beef cattle in a cattle pen in Segoroyoso Village, Pleret District, Bantul Regency, Yogyakarta. (ANTARA-Hery Sidik)

BANTUL - The Bantul Regency Government will prioritize the oral and nail disease vaccine (PMK) for dairy cows that produce milk in their area.

Head of the Bantul Food and Agriculture Security Agency, Joko Waluyo, said that although the priority of vaccines has been determined, his party is still waiting for the number of vaccines to be obtained from the government.

"We have proposed the PMK vaccine, but we don't know how much it will decrease, but the central government prioritizes dairy cows first," said Joko in Bantul, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, June 15.

According to him, the PMK vaccine is prioritized for dairy cows so that efforts to increase cattle milk production are faster.

"Because the production of dairy cows has decreased drastically, and it will take a long time to restore dairy production. In Bantul, there are not so many dairy cows, only 160 in Bantul," he said.

However, he said, his party has also proposed a PMK vaccine for beef cattle to the Ministry of Agriculture in addition to dairy cows, because indeed FMD cases in this area have reached 973 cases, with five calves or calves dying.

"If we have proposed beef cattle, the total population of Bantul cattle is 72 thousand, there are feeder cattle, adult cattle, calves (calf) there are several classifications, but we have proposed all of them," he said.

Furthermore, Joko said, to prevent the spread of the FMD outbreak, his party continues to monitor livestock imported from outside the region, and carry out special handling of livestock suspected of FMD.

"If we don't have a cattle traffic post, and the livestock traffic post is the authority of the province, we will only monitor the rat roads, because frankly, Bantul has a lot of cattle from the Wonosari area, Gunung Kidul, Wonogiri (Central Java), we are also tightening the supervision. in the animal market," he said.