Vaccine skeptics are coming for your feta cheese

ATHENS — Greek farmers are begging for vaccines to save their flocks from sheep pox, and Brussels is offering them for free. But the Athens government doesn’t want them, preferring to cull infected animals. That’s all very bad news for feta cheese fans. Sheep pox is so infectious that global farming regulations require whole herds to be slaughtered immediately after even a single case is detected. Since the first case emerged in a northern region of Greece in 2024, authorities have culled more than 470,000 sheep and goats and closed some 2,500 farms nationwide. Advertisement The country’s livestock breeding industry is now on the verge of collapse — endangering the trademark white cheese, into which producers pour 80 percent of the country’s sheep and goat milk. “If there is no immediate response, feta cheese will become a luxury item,” said Vaso Fasoula, a sheep farmer in Greece’s agricultural heartland of Thessaly, who has confined her 2,500 sheep to protect them from the contagion. An alternative to all this killing: vaccines, available free from Brussels. “Vaccination is the only additional measure that can stop the occurrence of new outbreaks, limit further spread to the rest of Greece and reduce the number of animals to be killed,” wrote Animal Welfare Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi to Athens last year. Yet the government has repeatedly rejected this option, citing the steep financial consequences and damage to exports. That refusal to embrace wide-scale prevention measures has infuriated farmers and is fueling further tensions with Brussels over an agriculture subsidy scandal — all while putting one of Greece’s most famous exports at risk. Farmers and livestock breeders have been blocking national highways all over the country for the last 40 days in one of the biggest mobilizations the country has experienced in recent years. Mass vaccination is among their demands, and they have said they won’t leave the roadblocks until the vaccination campaign starts. Advertisement Behind the government’s refusal to vaccinate, critics allege, are not only misguided priorities but also a corruption cover-up. Anti-vax Sheep pox vaccines would be free, but they would nonetheless come at a high cost. Greek Agriculture Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras said a nationwide vaccine initiative would see Greece classified as a country where sheep pox is endemic. That could jeopardize exports, given the desperation of other countries to keep the bug beyond their borders. “Our scientists are clear,” Tsiaras said in October . “They do not recommend vaccination. Farmers are in a difficult position, but we cannot do anything other than follow the scientific guidance.” While a sheep pox declaration means restrictions on exporting animals — the virus can live in wool for up to six months — shipments of treated milk products like feta cheese would be less affected. Τhe trademark salty, white, crumbly delight — a protected designation of origin within the EU — is a major economic driver. Greece produces over 97,000 tons of feta annually, more than two-thirds of which is exported. The country netted a record €785 million...

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