The European Commission granted Poland permission to bring forward farmer aid schemes worth €2.3bn over the last week alone.

On Tuesday, a farmer support scheme was approved to the tune of €1bn to improve farmer cashflow, with the backdrop of the war on Ukraine.

Farmers there are currently facing liquidity shortages, with high fertiliser costs and unstable agricultural markets, the Commission said in its approval notice.

The move comes just one week after Brussels gave the green light to a separate €1.3bn scheme to support farmers to take out insurance premiums on certain classes of vegetables and livestock.

Support equivalent to 65% of the insurance costs can be paid out under this scheme to provide farmers with a financial safety in the case of damaging climatic events, such as hurricanes, floods or landslides.

Previous aid

In April of 2022, Poland - whose Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski holds the agriculture brief in Brussels - was among the first EU member states to be allowed to roll out farm schemes to compensate farmers for rocketing input costs.

This scheme was approved up to a value of €836m for fertiliser grants of up to €107/ha for tillage and €53.50/ha for grassland.

Poland’s farming sector is also in line for the biggest chunk of any member state out of the €156m of mobilised agricultural reserve funds.

Compensation

The funding was proposed by the Commission as compensation for tillage farmers in eastern Europe for the market disruption posed by an influx of Ukrainian grain through ‘solidarity lanes’.

This allocation was drawn from the €450m agricultural reserve that is to serve as a source of ringfenced emergency funding for all 27 member states when crisis cash is needed, such as in times of drought or market disruption.

Poland can add 200% to the monies drawn down through these EU crisis funds.

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