The Government approved amendments to the regulations concerning the provision of financial support to apple growers approved on September 14. The money that remained in the funds for compensating plum growers will be reallocated to apple growers, IPN reports.
Under the regulations approved on September 14, compensations of 1.2 lei/kg were to be provided for 40,000 tonnes of plums. The apple producers were to be compensated with 1.5 lei/kg for a total quantity of 60,000 tonnes.
“Until September 15, by when the plum growers were to submit applications, there were filed fewer applications than expected. After exchanging opinions with associations of producers, we proposed that the rest of the money should be offered to apple growers as they asked for compensations for a larger quantity of apples than we anticipated. Thus, the remaining 108 million lei of the 143 million lei will be redirected to apple growers,” said Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov.
Compensations will be provided to all the growers of apples, either summer or autumn, which supplied apples to processing companies. “We will not use the ‘first come, first served’ principle. All the apple growers will be compensated. Evidently, the compensation will be lower than 1.5 lei/kg, maybe 1 leu/kg. But we are negotiating with the World Bank and other donors so that they offer financing for helping the agricultural producers that sustained losses as a result of the bans imposed by Russia. If we get this financing, we will increase the compensation,” stated Vasile Bumacov.
