  We apply the nuclear model with explicit mesons to photoproduction of neutral
pions off protons at the threshold. In this model the nucleons do not interact
with each other via a potential but rather emit and absorb mesons that are
treated explicitly on equal footing with the nucleons. We calculate the total
cross section of the reaction for energies close to threshold and compare the
calculations with available experimental data. We show that the model is able
to reproduce the experimental data and determine the range of the parameters
where the model is compatible with the experiment.
