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Small scale farms and factories in northeastern Italy have been assessing the extent of damage caused by Sunday's earthquake which killed seven people. Livestock farms are scattered all around the flat Emilia Romagna region countryside and most breeders did not wait for outside help to start cleaning up after the 6.0 magnitude quake. Cattle in dairy farms in Finale Emilia survived the earthquake because most cowsheds did not collapse, but breeders like Davide Veratti say the animals are in shock and milk production is down. The members of the Veratti family did not want to be interviewed on camera because they too are in shock. The Verattis own some 200 cows, said Davide Veratti, who produces milk for the Parmigiano Regiano consortium. Most of their parmesan wheels were destroyed when the shelves they were piled up on collapsed. They also fear that the quake may cause many of the pregnant cows to abort their calves, which means no milk. Farms which supply pigs for the Parma ham market were also damaged. Gianfranco Pradella, who owns some 1000 pigs, lost one of his barns after the quake caused the roof to collapse. But luckily firefighters went to help him and none of his animals died. "We have mainly structural damages because fortunately we could save all the pigs, so we are having some minor economic losses for moving them. The structure is not safe anymore, so we will have to tear it down and build a new one. We think that our farm, including also other structures, has suffered a damage of about 400 to 500-thousand euro (510 to 640-thousand US dollars)," he said. Prandella has rented another barn 100 kilometres (62 miles) away, where he's moved all of his pigs. The rescue operation wasn't an easy one. "In the morning, when I and my brothers found out that the pigs seemed to be alive, my brother used a digger to break all the windows so that we could pull out the pigs before the entire barn could eventually collapse," he said. Italy's Prime Minister Mario Monti has promised swift help for small-scale businesses in the Emilia Romagna region - one of Italy's more productive. The government approved some temporary tax relief to owners of property damaged in the quake-struck north on Tuesday, hours after Monti inspected the region. Monti then led a Cabinet meeting in Rome that declared a state of emergency in the area and made 50 (m) million euro (64 (m) million US dollars) in emergency funds available for use by the national Civil Protection agency providing quake assistance. The Cabinet also authorised a delay in payment of a new property tax for those whose homes or businesses were left unusable. The property tax is a key part of Monti's strategy to heal Italian finances and keep the country from succumbing to the eurozone debt crisis. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/ac9943e52fea10d45da3c5066eed6f09 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork