2024-07-11 14:02:15
The Czech Republic will add one hundred million crowns from the state budget to the aid for fruit growers affected by the frosts, Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborný reported on the X network on Thursday. He agreed on the amount with Minister of Finance Zbyňek Stanjura. Most of the money will go to fruit growers, about ten percent will also go to kindergarteners.
The European Commission has already proposed to release 15 million euros, i.e. approximately 378 million crowns, for Czech fruit growers. “In agreement with Minister Zbyňek Stanjura, we will add one hundred million crowns from national resources to the European aid for fruit growers affected by the frosts. We will thus have almost half a billion crowns at our disposal. Roughly ten percent of the total amount will go to nurseries, the rest to fruit growers,” Výborný wrote on the X network All countries could supplement the EU support by up to two hundred percent from national funds.
Výborný (KDU-ČSL) had previously said that the government was counting on releasing money for affected fruit growers from the state budget, but the minister wanted to agree on a specific amount only after the European Commission publishes the amount of EU support. On Tuesday, the Commission proposed to release 77 million euros (over 1.9 billion crowns) from reserves to support farmers growing fruit, vegetables and wine in the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland. Member States approved the proposal.
The commission allocated ten million euros (252.4 million crowns) for Austria, another 37 million euros (933.9 million crowns) will be given to Polish farmers and 15 million euros (378.6 million crowns) will go to Portugal.
The Czech Republic will probably accept applications during September or October. According to estimates, the total losses of Czech fruit growers in terms of sales from crops destroyed by frost will be over 1.3 billion crowns. Výborný drew attention to the fact that it will not be possible to compensate one hundred percent of the damage, but according to him, the money will help the fruit growers to survive the difficult period. According to the European Commission, payments to farmers in the Czech Republic, Austria and Poland must be made by the end of January 2025.
According to the harvest estimate for June 15, the fruit harvest in the Czech Republic will drop by 77 percent compared to the five-year average to 31,430 tons from 138,963 tons due to severe spring frosts. Apples are expected to harvest just 23,437 tons, a 79 percent drop from the five-year average. Fruit growers do not rule out that the fall in the harvest will be even higher. So far, fruit growers have estimated that around 500 out of 800 growing companies could be threatened with existence.