Support for farmers, foresters, fishermen, and food producers

Funding of 518 million euros was secured for the Rural Development Programme (RDP) 2014–2020 for the transition period of 2021 and 2022, including 84 million euros in EU recovery instrument funding, to promote economic recovery following the impact of Covid and to ensure a gradual transition towards the targets set by the European Green Deal, while strengthening the development of small and medium-sized farms and promoting environmental and climate investments and organic farming:

• the opportunity to undertake new commitments for rural development area payments, including in organic farming, was secured, with 70 million euros allocated for the transition period;
• the opportunity to submit projects for the development of small farm operations was secured (15 million euros);
• the opportunity to submit projects for young farmers to start operations was secured (4.4 million euros);
• the regulatory framework was developed for investments in rural farms, processing, and infrastructure under the 'Investments in physical assets' measure for project submissions from 10 January 2022 to 10 February 2022 (114 million euros);
• the opportunity to submit project ideas for the development of new innovative solutions in agriculture and forestry was secured under the 'Cooperation' measure (6 million euros);
• the opportunity to apply for support for stand tending was secured, improving the resilience of forest ecosystems and increasing ecological values (6 million euros);
• support for the purchase of insurance policies was secured under the 'Risk management' measure (16.6 million euros);
• other rural development measures were implemented, including the implementation of the Leader approach, which activated local territorial development (19 million euros).