A total of 719 Murcian farmers will receive 6,321,425 euros in aid from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to deal with the effects of the drought. Agriculture began on Tuesday the procedure to pay a total of 712.7 million euros in extraordinary aid to farmers and ranchers affected by the drought.
The royal decree-law approved on May 4 by the Council of Ministers established extraordinary aid for 631.7 million euros to compensate for the losses and the increase in production costs caused by the drought and as a consequence of the war in Ukraine to Spanish farmers and ranchers.
In addition, the 81 million euros assigned to Spain from the agricultural reserve of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will also be paid, at the request of the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, made to the European Commission.
Published the provisional list of benefited livestock farms
The ministry published this Tuesday on the website of the Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA) the provisional list of the 74,651 owners of livestock farms that will benefit from State aid for 355 million euros.
This extraordinary support, which will begin to be disbursed from October, is granted directly to the beneficiaries, producers of bovine meat (suckler cows), sheep and goats, and cow, sheep and goat milk producers who have been beneficiaries. of aid associated with livestock from the Common Agrarian Policy (PAC) of the 2022 campaign and that have a census greater than zero as of April 30, 2023.
In the case of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands, the beneficiaries will be the owners of cattle, sheep and goat farms registered in the General Registry of Livestock Farms on April 30, 2023.
The aid is granted when the amount to be received is equal to or greater than 200 euros. It is estimated that the beneficiaries who meet the conditions established to access this aid, who do not present allegations and who are up to date with their tax and Social Security obligations, will be able to receive this aid in the month of October.
The total allocated budget of 355 million euros is distributed as follows: 197 million euros for beef producers, 117.4 million euros for sheep and goat meat producers, 17.4 million euros for cow’s milk producers and 23.2 million euros for sheep and goat milk producers.
Based on the provisional data of eligible livestock farms and the number of animals that would be eligible for this aid, and to avoid exceeding the estimated maximum amount per species and productive orientation, a linear adjustment has been made to the unit amounts indicated in the actual decree-law 4/2023, of May 11, in such a way that the following unit amounts per head of cattle have been established for areas affected by high levels of drought:
Beef cow (nurse): 143.48 euros
Sheep and goat meat: 15.89 euros
Milk cow: 55.12 euros
Sheep and milk goat: 8.66 euros
As established by the royal decree-law, the farms that have most of their potentially eligible animals in the 2022 campaign in the autonomous communities established as areas with medium drought conditions will receive 50% of the amounts provided for each species. and productive orientation, while those of moderate condition will receive 25% of the amounts.
For cow’s milk producers, a maximum of 725 eligible animals per beneficiary is established. Suckler cow producers will receive 100% of the unit amount for the first 250 cows, and 50% of them from 251 to the entire census. Sheep and goat producers will receive 100% of the respective amounts for the first 2,000 animals, and 50% of the same for the rest of their eligible animals.
The list of the owners of the farms that are eligible for aid, together with the number of heads of cattle computed and the amount of aid to be received are available for consultation on the bulletin board of the electronic headquarters of the FEGA, You can consult the list of owners of livestock farms who are eligible for aid. Interested parties have a period of 10 business days (from July 5 to 18) to make claims, which must be submitted exclusively through the claim form at the FEGA electronic headquarters.
Public consultation of aid to farmers
The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has also submitted for public consultation the draft ministerial order that will establish the agricultural sectors to which the extraordinary aid established in Royal Decree Law 4/2023, of May 11, will be allocated. with a budget of 276.7 million euros, to which are added 81 million euros from the agricultural reserve of the CAP assigned to Spain.
The funds contemplated in this royal decree-law will be used to alleviate the situation of farmers with areas of dryland arable crops, certain industrial crops (industrial tomato and rice) and cherries from Valle del Jerte (Cáceres), which are have been affected by the combined effect of the increase in production costs derived from the consequences of the war in Ukraine and by the effect of the second consecutive year of drought.
For dryland arable crops, the unit amount of the aid will be differentiated by area. Thus, in the largest area, in which the reductions in harvest have been most pronounced, farmers will receive the full unit amount per hectare of aid. This area includes the autonomous communities of Andalusia, Aragon, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia, Extremadura, Madrid, Murcia, Navarra, La Rioja, the Valencian Community and the province of Álava, in the Basque Country.
Farmers in the northern provinces of Castilla y León (Zamora, León, Palencia, Valladolid, Burgos and Soria), where the effects of the drought have been less severe, as well as those in the Balearic and Canary Islands, will receive 50% of the unit amount per hectare of the aid.
In the case of industrial crops, tomato for industry and rice, aid is provided for producers who exceptionally have not been able to sow in 2023 on the land that they traditionally allocate to these products.
These aids will be paid ex officio, to the owners of agricultural exploitations that are beneficiaries of the direct aids of the CAP corresponding to the 2023 campaign, whose deadline for submitting applications ended on June 30, without the beneficiaries having to make any additional type of management. The aid, which will be limited to 300 hectares per beneficiary, will be paid by direct transfer, by the Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA).
Likewise, eight million euros will be transferred to the autonomous community of Extremadura, charged to the funds set forth in the aforementioned royal decree-law, so that it grants compensatory payments to the cherry producers of Valle del Jerte who have been affected by an unusual concurrence of climatic phenomena, whose consequences, without this support, could be irreparable. Payments will be granted to cherry farmers, with a full unit amount for those who have taken out agricultural insurance and 50% for those who have not. In this way, it is intended to promote among farmers the contracting of this form of coverage against climatic risks.
The 81 million euros of the agricultural reserve of the CAP assigned to Spain by the European Commission will be allocated to producers of certain woody crops for which drought conditions have affected to a greater extent in the critical phases of their development cycle. It is, specifically, the producers of stone fruit, pip fruit, nuts, tropical fruits and citrus. Two zones will be established with differentiated aid amounts per hectare. Thus, producers from the provinces of Almería, Granada, Málaga and Álava and from the autonomous communities of Aragon, Catalonia, Navarra and La Rioja will receive the full unit amount per hectare. Producers from the rest of the provinces of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, Murcia and the Valencian Community, will receive 50% of the unit amount of the aid.
These aids will be paid in the form of a direct subsidy by the FEGA, to the owners of agricultural exploitations that are beneficiaries of the direct aids of the PAC corresponding to the 2023 campaign, with a limit of 70 hectares per beneficiary, without the producers having to to carry out any type of additional management. Payment of this aid will be made within the period determined by community regulations.
The Government has deployed, since March 2022, a battery of direct aid to deal with the consequences of the war in Ukraine and the climatic adversities that add up to 1,380.2 million euros (already added to the 81 million euros of the reserve fund of the CAP). These extraordinary aids are added to the direct aid from the CAP, which farmers and ranchers receive annually, for an approximate value of 4,800 million euros per year.
Additionally, the Government has made available to the agricultural sector as a whole other fiscal support measures, such as the general reduction of 25% of the net yield of Personal Income Tax for farmers and ranchers covered by the tax regime. objective estimate by modules, or the reduction of the tax applicable to agricultural diesel. It has also facilitated liquidity measures through loans guaranteed by the Sociedad Anónima Estatal de Caución Agracia (Saeca) at reduced interest and with a subsidy for part of the capital, as well as increases in the budget for subsidies in agricultural insurance and in government policies. drought insurance.
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