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Bratislava – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MPRV) SR has decided to provide additional funding for older project calls number 52 and 65 and will also announce a so-called technical call to prevent the forfeiture of EU funds due to low absorption in recent years. This was stated on Monday by the Minister of Agriculture Richard Takáč (Smer-SD) with the participation of representatives of the agro sector, TASR reports.
Takáč pointed out that this year it is necessary to spend about 300 million euros on project euro-fund calls; if they are not spent, these resources will be lost.
“By additionally funding call 52 and 65 and with the new technical call for special animal and plant production, we will be able to support the sector as we always say. We will not support farmers at the MPRV who have thousands of hectares and grow three crops. We want to support farmers who have thousands of hectares but are engaged in special animal or special plant production,” Takáč specified.
“We will additionally fund call number 65 with another approximately 78 million euros, so more real projects will be satisfied. We will additionally fund call number 52 with an amount of 49 million euros,” he specified. In September, according to him, another so-called technical call will be announced, intended for special plant and animal production, in the amount of 50 million euros. “It will be purely a catalog call,” warned the Minister of Agriculture.
“Unfortunately, we inherited a situation that is alarming. We inherited a number of calls that were announced, but for a year or two nothing happened with them,” added the agro minister. In 2021, according to him, only about 45 million euros were spent in the so-called second pillar, in 2022 it was about 39 million euros. In 2023, 64 million euros were spent. “Currently, in 2024, at the end of June, spending is at roughly 53 million euros,” Takáč added.
Agriculture in Slovakia has long been financially underfunded, resulting in low competitiveness according to him. The Ministry of Agriculture therefore has steps ready to reverse this situation. It will support 575 projects for the modernization of agriculture and the food industry, which former governments left dormant.
My predecessors are directly responsible for the stagnation in the agro sector. Obviously, they were guided by the motto that whoever does nothing, does nothing wrong, and so, for example, in 2022 they paid an appallingly low number of requests. Out of 14,000 farmers in Slovakia, only 64 primary producers received support, and in the food sector only an unbelievable 11,” the minister stated, emphasizing that the blame is not on the farmers’ shoulders. According to him, the current opposition is to blame. (August 5)