The EU agricultural crisis reserve must also be opened to deal with summer drought and flood damage

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The European Commission proposed on Monday almost 120 million euros in financial aid to Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Italy and Romania to alleviate their agricultural damage in the spring and early summer. Following the requests submitted months ago, a decision is now being made to provide the resources for those involved. In our country, the July-August drought caused serious difficulties for the farmers, so in the knowledge of the almost permanent drought damage by the middle of September, the Minister of Agriculture István Nagy asked the EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski to open the EU agricultural crisis reserve to compensate for the damage caused by the summer drought and the current flood. for farmers. In the current situation, farmers must be given all domestic and EU support. In recent years, we have consciously strengthened the domestic system of tools that are used for the subsequent treatment of damages caused by natural risks. The damage mitigation fund has already been filled up to HUF 35 billion from state, producer and EU sources, and this year the producers have taken out drought insurance for 715,000 hectares, which is linked to premium subsidies.

AM