Overtime for the payment of agricultural subsidies
Important EU agricultural aid in the three-digit million range will reach farms at the last minute this year. The compensatory allowances and direct payments will be paid to agricultural businesses in the last two weeks before the end of the year, the Thuringian Ministry of Agriculture announced in response to an inquiry in Erfurt. The reason for this is a change to the complex procedure in which land management is digitally monitored using satellites.
Around 200 million euros are at stake
"Unfortunately, satellite monitoring has not yet worked as reliably as we had hoped," said a ministry spokesperson. According to experience from previous years, the direct and compensatory payments in Thuringia amount to a total of around 200 million euros, which in the past was often paid out by mid-December. To date, around 2,200 farms have received the compensatory payment and around 4,000 the direct payment. The application process has been completely digitalized.
The Federal Ministry of Agriculture recently set December 22 and 27 as the earliest possible payment dates. "The federal states must now create the necessary conditions for the payments," it said from Berlin.
Most of the checks have been carried out
"Of the total of 47,000 inspection tasks, 90 percent have already been completed," said Thuringia's Agriculture Minister Susanna Karawanskij (Left Party). The employees of the State Office for Agriculture and Rural Areas are doing a good job - also in providing technical advice and support to farmers in dealing with new technology.
The employees of the State Office now have a lot of work to do between Christmas and New Year. There is also talk of overtime. The time pressure arose because, according to the Ministry, only one of the planned satellites could be used to record the areas. The EU had promised to replace the defective satellite in December.
Part of the area not covered by the satellite
20 to 30 percent of the agricultural land in Thuringia was not detected by the satellite - partly due to a lot of moisture in the spring. Farmers had to send in the necessary evidence digitally using a new app developed by the state of Thuringia and photos. The app was used nationwide for the first time and technical support was provided by the state office.
Direct payments are a core element of EU agricultural support. According to the ministry, farms that cultivate fields or grassland in naturally unfavorable locations and achieve lower yields benefit from the compensatory allowance.
Due to issues with satellite monitoring, the EU agricultural subsidies in the form of direct and compensatory payments, worth approximately 200 million euros, are likely to be paid to agricultural businesses in Thuringia at a later date than usual. This change in payment schedule is a consequence of the complex process involving digital monitoring of land management using satellites.
Despite the challenges, the Thuringian Ministry of Agriculture has managed to complete around 90% of the required inspections for these subsidies, with the remaining tasks to be handled overtime between Christmas and New Year.
Source: www.dpa.com
