€14.5 million in foot-and-mouth disease compensation paid in Cyprus, three farmers denied payment

The Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture heard the final decisions on compensation for the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. Three farm owners were denied payments, while four others will receive money only for the part of their livestock that was officially registered to their farms. Three more applications are awaiting documents from the farmers themselves.

Christodoulos Pipis, Director of Veterinary Services, explained that an animal is considered accounted for only if it is entered in the veterinary services database in the name of the farm owner. If, for example, 600 animals bearing another farm’s tags were found on a farm during culling and had not been declared as the property of that farm, no compensation is payable for them.

According to the Directorate-General for Agriculture, €14.5 million has already been paid to 107 recipients for livestock losses. A total of €17.5 million has been allocated for livestock, milk and feed, including €720,248 to 58 farms for rejected milk and approximately €1.65 million for roughage.

The outbreak began in the summer: 121 farms were declared infected, and 80,133 animals were culled — 52,632 sheep and goats, 24,483 pigs and 3,018 head of cattle. The last officially recorded case of foot-and-mouth disease was dated 9 June 2026 and was detected in Mammari.

For failure to comply with the measures, the authorities had to issue 33 administrative fines totalling €112,540, while six cases involving serious violations were referred to the police. By the end of August, the vaccination campaign had covered 95.8% of cattle farms and 89.5% of sheep and goat farms.

A separate area concerns compensation for loss of income: the authorities have promised to approve the calculation methodology within the next two weeks. Farmers have been offered free vaccines for the 2026–2027 season.