On Tuesday, June 17th, the government adopted the conditions for granting EU emergency support for fruit and vegetable farms that due to rain and frost suffered economic loses in 2024. To protect the viability of farms, the EU allocated to Latvia is 4,2 million euros.
“By defending the interests of our country's farmers, it is possible to achieve favorable decisions at the EU level. After the devastating frosts and rains of 2024, which caused significant losses for fruit and vegetable growers, we turned to the European Commission with a request for support. And we achieved it. Support will be granted to farms whose total agricultural income per declared hectare in 2024 has decreased by at least 20% compared to the average agricultural income per declared hectare in 2021, 2022, and 2023,” emphasizes Minister for Agriculture Armands Krauze.
Support will be provided for:
- mitigating frost damage – for fruit growers,
- mitigating rain damage – for both fruit and vegetable growers.
Furthermore, if a farmer was also affected by unfavorable climatic conditions in 2023, that year will not be taken into account in the income calculation.
Perennial plantations that are one or two years old will be excluded from the calculation, as they do not produce a significant yield or contribute to the total agricultural income in the first two years.
The support may not exceed 80% of the average income from previous years, in order to avoid the risk of overcompensation.
The total eligible support area must be at least 0.5 hectares.
When applying for support, applicants must submit an application to the Rural Support Service (LAD), indicating only the affected areas and crops, as the remaining information is already available to state institutions. LAD holds information about the areas declared in geospatial applications in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, while information on agricultural income will be obtained from the State Revenue Service.
The regulations “Procedures for granting European Union emergency support to mitigate the economic impact of unfavorable climatic conditions in the fruit and vegetable sector in 2024” will come into force the day after their publication in the official publisher “Latvijas Vēstnesis”.