The money identified for supporting the farmers who protested in the Great National Assembly Square was taken from children and older persons, said Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vladimir Bolea, who rejected the farmers’ ultimatum and said that the Government is looking for new funds to help the farmers. The Deputy Prime Minister assured that the regulations on the provision of subsidies are being designed and the 200 million lei promised to farmers will be soon distribution through the Agency for Intervention and Payments in Agriculture (AIPA), IPN reports.
According to Minister Bolea, the Government identified 200 million lei in the state budget for being distributed to farmers for covering the costs of fertilizes used in the autumn of 2022.
“It is possible to take the VAT on diesel fuel. We refund the excise duty on diesel fuel, including for the last two months of 2022. With these 200 million lei, we will subsidize the fertilizers used by farmers in the autumn of 2022, even if they didn’t use these. Data show that 35-40% of the farmers didn’t use fertilizers in the autumn of 2022. These are very small farmers who didn’t have financial potential to buy fertilizers. We decided to provide subsidies to everyone, depending on the cultivated areas. The regulations will be drafted by a working group that meets on Friday. It will include representatives of the AIPA and the Ministry of Agriculture and farmers and we will start work on these regulations so that the money is later distributed to farmers who cultivated autumn grain crops, such as wheat and barley, through the AIPA,” Vladimir Bolea stated in the program “Emphasis on Today” on TVR Moldova channel.
Two days ago, the executive director of the Association “Force of Farmers” Alexandru Slusari announced the suspension of the farmers’ protest. He said that if the Government does not identify additional financial resources, the farmers will resume the protest on August 1.
“All this money is taken from children, older persons, from the 2.5 million citizens of the Republic of Moldova as the Government realizes that it is a difficult situation. The money does not belong to the Ministry of Agriculture or to Bolea. It belongs also to the children who were born yesterday. All the country’s citizens now took 200 million lei and paid it to farmers. The Government isn’t sleeping and is looking for other funds,” said Vladimir Bolea.
The farmers demanded by August 1 to identify funds for allocating by 3,000 lei per hectare of grain crops of the first group, to bring diesel fuel from Romania and distribute it to micro-, small- and medium-sized farmers, to impose a moratorium on the payment of interest and penalties to creditors until December 31, 2023, by a decision by the Commission for Exceptional Situations.
