Livestock breeders from Saratov and Samara are asked to check the Rosselkhoznadzor of the region

However, this is not the first time the HEAD of state notes the role of our farmers and businessmen in the country's economy and our life, as he speaks about the tasks of supporting them that the authorities and federal bodies face. Unfortunately, not everyone heeds the president's words.

Not so long ago, a meeting of the Board of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture was held in Saratov. Usually such an event does not attract much attention to itself. But this time, the participants were in for a surprise: after the report of the head of the ROSSELKHOZNADZORin the Saratov and Samara regions of Alexei Chastov, the head of the largest livestock enterprise, chairman of the board of directors of Trudovoy Breeding Plant JSC Syrem Bayzuldinov, sharply criticized him. According to the farmer, the supervisory body, headed by Chastov, uses its powers so freely that it regularly exceeds them, which causes multi-million damage to the farms of the Saratov and Samara regions. At the same time, Bayzuldinov was not unfounded, he gave specific examples and named specific farms.

We tried to figure it out and find out whether there really are such serious contradictions in the interaction between regional heads of farms and the regional service of Rosselkhoznadzor. As it turned out, Baizuldinov's words really have serious grounds. Moreover, many agrarians in conversation with each other and journalists use the term "chastovshchina" - this is how they call incompetence with suspicion of deliberate sabotage.

FMD with history

No, the title is not about Chastov, but about a particularly dangerous disease of animals and humans - foot and mouth disease. In RUSSIA, on the whole, they are successfully fighting against it. But from time to time foci appear, as a rule, the disease is imported from the countries of Asia and Africa, where the situation with veterinary support is much worse than in our country. Therefore, the subjects of the Russian Federation bordering on such neighbors (in the case of the Saratov region - Kazakhstan) are often included in the list of unfavorable, which imposes certain restrictions on the sale of products. Usually, regions bordering such countries carry out vaccination, thereby creating immunity in animals. So did 13 Russian subjects of the Federation (Krasnodar and Stavropol Territories, the Republics of Adygea, Kalmykia, Dagestan, Ingushetia, Astrakhan, Volgograd and Rostov Regions, Kabardino-Balkaria, Karachay-Cherkess, Chechen Republic and North Ossetia-Alania). But not the Saratov region, since then the head of the regional veterinary service of the region, Alexei Chastov, decided not to vaccinate. Although until 2019, vaccination against foot and mouth disease was carried out in six districts of the region bordering Kazakhstan (Aleksandrovogaysky, Novouzensky, Pitersky, Dergachevsky, Ozinsky, Perelyubsky), thereby creating a so-called “buffer zone” that prevents the virus from entering our territory. Currently, livestock breeders in the south of Russia can sell their products without significant restrictions. While agricultural producers of the Saratov and Samara regions lost the right to sell grown animals and manufactured products outside the region, without having the necessary permits in their hands.

In 2021, Alexey Chastov headed the Office of Rosselkhoznadzor for the Saratov and Samara regions. In the same year, on the territory of the Orenburg region, 400 km from the borders with our region, an animal with foot and mouth disease was found. By decision of the central office of the Rosselkhoznadzor, the Saratov region, along with nine other regions, is recognized as unfavorable for foot and mouth disease.

The regional government tried to rectify the situation. It is worth paying tribute to the fact that the veterinary service of the region managed to carry out the necessary vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease of all livestock in the region as soon as possible, the vaccine was purchased at the expense of the regional budget. It would seem that there is one small step left before establishing the status of “prosperous, with vaccination” for the region, but ... at a meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia it was said that, according to the territorial Office of the Rosselkhoznadzor for the Saratov and Samara regions, the Saratov region did not provide full vaccination coverage of susceptible livestock. Although officially, not a single violator was identified who would have evaded vaccination. As it turned out, in order to conduct the necessary research in this case on the intensity of immunity against foot-and-mouth disease, the regional veterinary service took and timely transferred 225 blood samples to the Interregional Veterinary Laboratory of the Rosselkhoznadzor. However, for unknown reasons, they lay there for more than a month and became unsuitable for the necessary research. How can this be called anything other than pure sabotage? The only thing Chastov could do with spoiled samples was to study for the presence of antibodies to non-structural proteins of the foot-and-mouth disease virus, which is pointless to change the status of the region. Such studies are carried out only where vaccination is not carried out, in order to exclude the circulation of the virus. they lay there for more than a month and became unsuitable for the necessary research. How can this be called anything other than pure sabotage? The only thing Chastov could do with spoiled samples was to study for the presence of antibodies to non-structural proteins of the foot-and-mouth disease virus, which is pointless to change the status of the region. Such studies are carried out only where vaccination is not carried out, in order to exclude the circulation of the virus. they lay there for more than a month and became unsuitable for the necessary research. How can this be called anything other than pure sabotage? The only thing Chastov could do with spoiled samples was to study for the presence of antibodies to non-structural proteins of the foot-and-mouth disease virus, which is pointless to change the status of the region. Such studies are carried out only where vaccination is not carried out, in order to exclude the circulation of the virus.

The situation could change after, on behalf of the federal Ministry of Agriculture, the regional veterinary service additionally took 300 blood samples for the intensity of immunity of livestock against foot-and-mouth disease and sent them to the veterinary laboratory in Vladimir (ARRIAH). Only now the Saratov Rosselkhoznadzor refused to issue the selected samples as federal monitoring. That is, the instructions of the federal authorities are already on the side of Chastov's department. As a result, the conducted studies, paid for at the expense of the regional budget, were counted as regional monitoring, and this does not allow us to get rid of the problematic status. Indeed, within the framework of federal monitoring, it was necessary to examine 900 samples, and because of Chastov's incomprehensible decision, only 675 results were included in it. It's been over a year and the issue has not been resolved.

According to agricultural producers, as a result of such actions of the territorial Department of Rosselkhoznadzor, Saratov and Samara livestock breeders may be on the verge of ruin. They are already suffering enormous losses due to the FMD bans. Farmers are wondering why the supervisory authorities of the Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk regions, Altai Territory and the Altai Republic decided to recognize the regions as “safe with vaccination” and did not jeopardize the development of animal husbandry in their regions, while the Saratov and Samara regions, patrimony of Alexei Chastov, remained banned?

Question about money?

Livestock breeders have a version that can explain why this situation has developed. According to farmers, the maintained status of a “problem region” allows farmers to issue additional bills. So, for the EXPORT of animals to the Samara or Orenburg region (nowhere else) for each sample examined for foot and mouth disease, you must pay 2400 rubles. This is not counting other studies required for registration of veterinary documents! And then there is simple arithmetic. In 2022, the Kalininsky pig farm sent more than a thousand samples for testing for foot-and-mouth disease. Khvalynsky pig complex with Novopushkinsky MEAT processing plant - more than 3.5 thousand samples. Millions of rubles from only three enterprises! But other livestock breeders in the region are doing the same.

There are also questions about the quality of the research. Last autumn, Sysoevsky LLC applied to the Saratov Rosselkhoznadzor with a request to take 120 samples for research on the intensity of immunity for foot and mouth disease. But instead, studies were conducted on leukemia and leptospirosis. At the same time, it was impossible to conduct a study on leptospirosis, since the animals were vaccinated against this disease. Of course, tests for this disease were positive. And this is the introduction of quarantine, the restriction of economic activity ... Of course, after the regional veterinary service sorted out the situation, the quarantine decision was canceled. But the economy suffered certain problems and losses.

In the same period, specialists of the supervisory department, under the pretext of conducting a study after vaccination of cattle against foot-and-mouth disease, visited the KFH Eskaliev N.I. However, instead, they tested for chlamydia and infectious epididymitis. Positive results were obtained, which the farmer doubted. Economic activity was limited, animals suspected of being infected and all animals susceptible to diseases were isolated. But the head of the peasant farm, at his own expense, conducted additional studies of small ruminants in independent laboratories in other regions. And here's a surprise: the conclusions of the Saratov Rosselkhoznadzor were not confirmed.

Another example is given by Syrem Bayzuldinov. In October 2022, the district veterinary service took blood from cattle in a breeding farm for a planned study. And then from the Rosselkhoznadzor they report that it is necessary to take samples for the Saratov interregional veterinary laboratory. More than 12 thousand heads of cattle subjected to repeated stress during blood sampling! What prevents getting samples at the regional station, or participating in sampling when the regional veterinary service does it?

IP Kursky (Saratov) was even more unlucky. Here, the Saratov MVL of the Rosselkhoznadzor conducted a study of a food additive sample. African swine fever has been identified. The disease is terrible! They introduced quarantine, suspended the activities of the enterprise, destroyed all expensive products. Only in the second sample from the same package, the study of which was carried out in Vladimir (ARRIAH), no plague was detected. The disease was not found either in Moscow (in the central scientific and methodological veterinary laboratory), or in specialized veterinary laboratories of the Leningrad, Kemerovo regions, the Republic of Bashkiria, where the products of the same batch were submitted for testing. What does it mean?

The prosecutor's office of the Saratov region began to understand the situation and revealed the facts of violations committed by the Saratov MVL during the research. And in the documents on the conducted studies, corrections were found, including the record of a negative result was replaced with a positive one. It is sad that no one was punished for this.

Although some businesses are trying to achieve justice in all possible ways. For example, since 2021, at the request of one of the enterprises (SarProdTrade LLC), the Investigative Committee of the Saratov Region has been considering a criminal case against the regional Department of Rosselkhoznadzor. The materials refer to abuse of office and obstruction of legitimate business activities. As a result, only direct damage to the enterprise amounted to more than 100 million rubles. And taking into account all the costs, the declared amount of losses is more than 300 million rubles.

Instead of an afterword

At present, an appeal has already been prepared by livestock breeders, processors and other agricultural producers of the Saratov region to the governor of the region Roman Busargin, outlining the facts of confrontation between the agrarians of the region and the regional Department of Rosselkhoznadzor represented by Alexei Chastov. This appeal is at the disposal of the editors, and in the publication we refer to the facts given in it.

Let's say more: agricultural producers are determined to go further and apply to the Security Council of the Russian Federation, to the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation with a request to inspect the activities of the Rosselkhoznadzor Administration for the Saratov and Samara regions and its veterinary laboratory, the Saratov MVL. After all, supervision should help farmers, not ruin them, isn't it?