`Greece’s New CAP Plan Approved By European Commission - Olive Oil Times
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Greece’s New CAP Plan Approved By European Commission

By Costas Vasilopoulos
Jan. 11, 2023 18:50 UTC

The European Commission has approved Greece’s national strate­gic plan, which aligns with the lat­est revi­sion of the E.U.’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

The new strate­gic plan, which started on January 1, 2023, is financed by the E.U. and Greece. €13.4 bil­lion of European Union funds will be allo­cated for direct sub­si­dies to Greek farm­ers over the next four years. Additionally, Greece will con­tribute another €822 mil­lion from the pub­lic cof­fers to the plan.

The country’s olive sec­tor is eli­gi­ble for finan­cial aid under the new scheme. Greek olive oil and table olives pro­duc­ers could also ben­e­fit from a range of sub­si­dized pro­grams tar­geted at the so-called ​“Organizations of Olive Producers — OEF” with a bud­get set at €10.6 mil­lion per year from 2023 – 2027.

See Also:New E.U. Ag Policy Could Benefit Greek Olive Growers If Requirements Are Met

The plan also includes mea­sures to ensure easy access to land and financ­ing for young Greek farm­ers (below the age of 40) to facil­i­tate the renewal of the country’s agri­cul­tural sec­tor.

In addi­tion, Greece’s strate­gic plan, as required for all E.U.-member states, is aligned with the European Green Deal and the European Union’s Farm to Fork and biodi­ver­sity strate­gies.

Direct sub­si­dies to farm­ers, grow­ers and live­stock breed­ers are more tied to envi­ron­men­tal objec­tives and green agri­cul­tural prac­tices under the new scheme.

“Greece’s plan will improve the via­bil­ity of small- and medium-sized hold­ings, which rep­re­sent the back­bone of Greek agri­cul­ture,” the European Commission said in an announce­ment. ​“This will be done with the help of tar­geted income sup­port and an addi­tional redis­trib­u­tive pay­ment.”

See Also:Europe Reveals ​‘Farm to Fork’ Strategy for Food Sustainability

Yiorgos Georgantas, the Greek min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, stated that the new strate­gic plan would help the nation’s farm­ers deal with emerg­ing issues.

“The adop­tion of our strate­gic plan marks a new period of sig­nif­i­cant reform and change for our pri­mary sec­tor and rural areas, given the seri­ous and major chal­lenges they face,” the min­is­ter said.

“Through our national strate­gic plan­ning, we seek to inte­grate in a bal­anced way the objec­tives of the new CAP for eco­nomic, envi­ron­men­tal and social sus­tain­abil­ity.”

The new CAP also intro­duces eco-schemes, an ini­tia­tive aimed at moti­vat­ing farm­ers to adopt agri­cul­tural prac­tices ben­e­fi­cial to the cli­mate, the envi­ron­ment, the water qual­ity and bio­di­ver­sity. Eco-schemes will be given more than €3.6 bil­lion from the CAP funds allo­cated exclu­sively to Greece.

According to Kostas Bayinetas, the sec­re­tary-gen­eral for the country’s agri­cul­tural pol­icy, the ​“big change” for farm­ers in the new scheme is their oblig­a­tion to stick to envi­ron­men­tally-friendly prac­tices.

“In the new year, farm­ers will have to select an action from the list of eco-schemes, such as crop rota­tion, the preser­va­tion of organic farm­ing or ani­mal hus­bandry,” Bayinetas clar­i­fied.

According to the pro­vi­sions of the CAP, ben­e­fi­cia­ries who fail to embark on an eco-scheme and apply envi­ron­men­tally-friendly prac­tices will have their sub­si­dies reduced by 25 per­cent.

“I think all olive farm­ers will want to embark on an eco-scheme with the new CAP,” Dimitris Mavroidis, from the Agricultural Olive Association of Livanates in the Fthiotida region, told Olive Oil Times. ​“A sin­gle farmer will vir­tu­ally gain noth­ing by work­ing sep­a­rately. Even more, there is no black mar­ket in table olives trad­ing if, hypo­thet­i­cally speak­ing, a stand-alone actor was look­ing to ben­e­fit from ille­gal exports.”

“However, the sub­si­dies under the new pro­gram are reduced com­pared to pre­vi­ously and will likely fur­ther reduce over time since we will have to direct resources to even more green prac­tices at the expense of olive trees cul­ti­va­tion,” Mavroidis added.

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Other experts con­curred that a reduc­tion in direct fund­ing should be expected, and farm­ers must put in extra work before receiv­ing back­ing under the new scheme.

“Farmers and grow­ers should expect lesser fund­ing under the new CAP,” agri­cul­tur­ist and sci­en­tific advi­sor Ioannis Peroulakis told us.

“Roughly speak­ing, an olive farmer who received €10,000 from the CAP plan cur­rently in oper­a­tion should be expect­ing a total fund­ing of around €7,000 with the new scheme,” Peroulakis added.

“Farmers will also have to do more to receive the funds, since there are many steps involved before their bank account is cred­ited. Therefore, farm­ers are not so happy with the CAP reform.”

Peroulakis also said that the new scheme favors those work­ing hard to cul­ti­vate the land since sev­eral idle farm­ers received back­ing under the pre­vi­ous CAP strat­egy.

However, he iden­ti­fied the lack of infor­ma­tion about the new CAP as a sig­nif­i­cant obsta­cle for farm­ers.

“The new com­mon agri­cul­tural pol­icy would be a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward, pro­vided there was ade­quate ori­en­ta­tion and infor­ma­tion for farm­ers, who are still in the dark when it comes to the exact pro­vi­sions and require­ments of the pol­icy. This is due to the com­plex­ity of the whole scheme and poses a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge to farm­ers and agron­o­mists at an E.U.-wide level.”

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