Authorization for the distribution of vole control products is suspended. Due to the seriousness of the situation and based on last week's meeting of experts at the Ministry of Agriculture, Minister of Agriculture Miroslav Toman decided on this. The Ministry of Agriculture called on the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Health to also contribute to addressing the calamity of overgrown rodents. 

“At this point, I have suspended the authorization to spread Stutox II across the worst affected agricultural areas. In many districts, the occurrence of voles reaches calamity and farmers are in real danger of hundreds of millions of crowns, but we will look for an acceptable solution for all parties to calm the situation,” said Minister Toman.

The authorization to use a rodent control product was issued on 5 August by the Central Institute for Supervising and Testing in Agriculture (CISTA). On 9 August, the Ministry of Agriculture invited representatives of the Ministry of the Environment, the Ministry of Health and the CISTA to jointly propose how to deal with the general calamity of overpopulated pests in the Czech Republic. 

“I would like us, with the Ministry of the Environment and other concerned state administration bodies, to find a method to stop the calamity that actually exists. This is also the reason why we offered representatives of the Ministry of the Environment to propose solutions themselves. If the voles are not sufficiently eliminated, there is a risk that the mild winter, when the rodents will have favorable conditions, will be even more disastrous next year,” said Miroslav Toman.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Agriculture will start looking for ways to compensate farmers for the losses they have suffered for the damaged crop, but at the moment the money for compensation is not available. 

In some regions, voles are so overgrown that even agrotechnical measures such as deep plowing are no longer effective. Mild winter and dry summer also contributed to the high number of rodents. Overgrowth is associated with health risks for humans. Some studies have shown that the common vole is a source of tularemia, leptospirosis, tick-borne encephalitis, toxoplasmosis, spirochetes, and the like.