2023-04-26 17:16:20
A serious problem for farmers is the implementation of the standards for good agricultural and ecological condition, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture told the Council of the EU
The application of ecoschemites it needs to be accessible to farmers. This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture Georgi Sabev during the last meeting of the European Union Agriculture and Fisheries Council which took place in Luxembourg. There, along with the main topic of the import of Ukrainian grain into Europe, the main highlights of the Strategic Plans for the development of agriculture and rural areas of individual member states were discussed.
During the discussions, it became clear that a number of countries have problems with eco-schemes. The reason for this is that they prove to be insufficiently attractive to farmers or difficult to implement.
In the position of our country, Deputy Minister Sabev pointed out that the planned budgets under them fail to attract enough willing farmers, and this puts at risk the achievement of the goals related to the effectiveness of the implementation of the eco-schemes.
A serious problem for farmers is the conditions for applying the standards for good agricultural and ecological status (GESA). “Farmers want them to be changed in a new way, reflecting their needs and capabilities,” explained the agrarian deputy minister.
The representatives of the member countries informed that in several European countries farmers have come out in protest and are ready to continue their strike action because of the high and difficult to achieve environmental goals. The new eco-requirements are pan-European, but for many farmers what the European Commission has approved in the national Strategic Plans is new.
It turns out that there are largely differences from what was presented or discussed with them. In this sense, Deputy Minister Georgi Sabev expressed the opinion that there is a general feeling that the new Common Agricultural Policy creates more administrative burden than easing its rules. At the moment, a number of Member States are working on amending their Strategic Plans, but there are indications that the amendment mechanism is not effective enough to change according to farmers’ capabilities and expectations.
Another topic that was the focus of the meeting was the changes in the labeling of honey. The Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Agriculture emphasized that our country supports changing the directive, which was proposed a few days ago by the EC. “Bulgaria has repeatedly stated the need to revise the current text, according to which there is no obligation to indicate all countries of origin of honey, in the case of a combination of honey from more than one producing country,” explained Deputy Minister Georgi Sabev.
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