Gov’t allocates RON 5.5m as temporary support for fruits and vegetables producers

The government has approved on Thursday a decision providing temporary financial support to agricultural producers of vegetables and fruits in Romania, which will allow the beneficiaries to recover some of the losses registered due to the crisis caused by the Russian ban, a press release informs, according to hotnews.ro.

It is an exceptional measure for temporary support, meant to cover part of the losses registered by farmers in the fruit and vegetables sector.

The maximum amount of financial support to be provided to the organizations of fruit and vegetables producers, and to the producers who are not members of these organizations is of RON 5.5 million as support according to the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development budget in 2017. The financial support covers activities during July 1, 2016 and until reaching the maximum quantity of 3,000 tons.

The extraordinary financial support is to be granted to the organizations of fruit and vegetables producers recognized by the European regulations in the field, and to producers of fruits and vegetables which are not members of a recognized producer organization.

The ban imposed by the Russian government for the import of fruits and vegetables from the European Union on August 7, 2014 led to the disruption of the fruits and vegetables market in the EU, with significant decreases in prices due to oversupply caused by the fact that there have not been identified other outlets for export. The current situation has had major implications on fruit and vegetable sector in Romania, because large amounts of fruits and vegetables were not sold and no proper storage was found, due to reduced capacity storage available to Romania.