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Agriculture: Dacian Ciolos: New CAP likely to bring more money to Romanian farmers
The new Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will bring more money to Romanian farmers in the coming period, which is not something all the member states will benefit from, European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Dacian Ciolos told the Romanian media in Brussels this Thursday.
The European Commissioner said that his message on the occasion of his visit to Romania this Friday will be that the new CAP explicitly takes into account the specifics of the new member states, Romania included.
'The diversity of Romanian agriculture is handled with specific tools in this reformed CAP, because we have specific support tools for the modernization of agriculture, for the organization of the producers, for taking up on the market the products that also come from small farms, we have the possibility to finance specific programs for the restructuring of particular sectors and I know that in Romania there is an intense debate over the restructuring of the tree-growing sector for instance, or of the dairy sector; these instruments will exist plus a lot of other flexibility elements allowing tailoring to the specificity of Romanian agriculture. And more than that, we have a new CAP that will bring more money to Romanian farmers in the next period, which is not the case for all member states,' Dacian Ciolos said.
The high European official remarked that it is for the first time when the CAP has an instrument that is mandatory for all member states, the installation aid for young farmers, which will be also available in Romania, 'not just in the form of the installation bonus worth several tens of thousands of euros offered under the rural development program, but also in the form of a rise in direct per hectare payments for young farmers in the first five years after installation.'
Commissioner Ciolos also mentioned that Romania will be able to use 13% of the budgetary allocation for direct payments, in order to support some sensitive sectors.
'I know for instance that Romania is considering the possibility to offer a coupled support for the dairy sector in certain mountain areas, or for sheep breeding or for other priority sectors in Romania. In addition to this, the possibility exists to direct 2% of the total allocation of direct payments, in the form of coupled payments for the production of protein-rich plants and vegetables, which is also important for the livestock sector, because the shortage of vegetable protein for animal feed is a well-known issue in Europe and Romania has a production potential in this direction,' Ciolos said.
Dacian Ciolos considers that by having helped hammer out this political agreement he has fulfilled the major goal of his term as European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, namely to reform the CAP.