The delegate of the Government in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz Nalda, has offered a press conference to highlight the “firm involvement of the Government of Spain to respond to the concerns and problems of farmers in our country and, therefore, in La Rioja”.
As has already been said, Arraiz Nalda has pointed out that the will is to continue betting on dialogue with this sector. “The Government of Spain is committed to finding solutions to the legitimate concerns raised,” he said.
In this way, he recalled that as a result of this process of listening and dialogue, last Thursday the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, met with the professional agricultural organizations to which he presented 18 measures that offer solutions and that are in line with the objectives of the Executive of Spain to seek the profitability and sustainability of agricultural activity and the future of the rural environment.
Among others, there are the proposals to simplify the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) or the measures proposed by the Government to agricultural organizations for an improvement in the application of the law of the chain, a regulation that is pioneering in Europe and that facilitates greater transparency in the formation of prices, a greater balance between the different links in the chain and the protection of the weakest by guaranteeing a fair remuneration to primary producers that obligatorily affects production costs.
In this regard, the delegate of the Government has highlighted this Food Chain Law, which “despite not being supported by PP and VOX, has seen its usefulness and has managed to increase prices at source in the agricultural and livestock sectors as a whole”. For example, from January 2022 to December 2023, discounting inflation, prices at source have increased, such as, for example, that of milk that has gone from 36 euro cents/litre to 56 euro cents/litre, “the maximum level of payment in the European Union”.
However, the delegate explained that it is necessary to go further and therefore, the Government of Spain is going to create the State Agency for Information and Food Control, which will have more means and effectiveness, to update the inspection plans and to strengthen collaboration with the autonomous communities in terms of inspection.
He also recalled that at the Council of Ministers of Agriculture of the European Union to be held on Monday, February 26, the Government of Spain will again defend the establishment of “mirror clauses” in trade agreements with third countries to demand that imported foods meet the same conditions as those produced within the European Union. Another of the claims raised is the one that refers to the digital notebook, whose application will be voluntary.
Role of Autonomous Communities
In addition, Arraiz Nalda has specified that this week the meeting of the Consultative Council of Common Agricultural Policy for Community Affairs preparatory to the Council of Ministers of the EU was held, in which the Government of Spain asked the autonomous communities for collaboration and support for the implementation of the 18 measures committed by the Central Executive at the last meeting with agricultural organizations and for them to also arbitrate complementary initiatives.
“It is essential that both the central government and the autonomous governments walk together, whatever the political color, if we really want to respond to the problems raised,” he said. Therefore, he added that the regional administrations have a lot to say and do in matters that are currently on the table for the claim of farmers and ranchers.
In this sense, it has set as an example the improvement of the planning and coordination of inspections so that the same agricultural exploitation does not receive more than one in a year.
As for the confrontation between administrations, he has criticized that “little helps the political use that some executives want to make of these mobilizations.” Thus, he pointed out that two days ago the activation was published in the BOE, as a matter of urgency, of the green harvest measure in grape vineyards for vinification for this year, with a budgetary allocation of 21.4 million euros. The main objective of this measure, which is activated for the second consecutive year, is to help balance the wine market and size the 2024 vintage to the storage and marketing capacity for the next season, to avoid the unwanted effects of a potential grape oversupply that weighs the income of winegrowers.
Specifically, for this year the allocation has been increased by almost 6.5 million euros for the whole country. The delegate has described this increase as a positive measure, although “the Government of La Rioja must seem scarce when stating that the head of Agriculture expects our community to receive 10 million euros in 2024, double last year’s aid”.
To size the requested figure, he has clarified that in 2023, 985 hectares of Rioja vineyards were admitted for green harvesting for a total aid of 3.7 million euros. That is why I raised the question of whether the regional executive believes that this year’s green harvest proposals will rise to EUR 10 million or simply the Agriculture Minister wanted to make use of this measure.
“We must keep in mind all the administrations that farmers and ranchers are the first interested parties that nobody manipulates them politically and nobody intends to use their fair and legitimate claims as an element of political confrontation,” he insisted.
Thus, it has called for collaboration between the administrations through the improvement of agricultural insurance, one of the issues with which the Government of Spain has been most committed. In 2011, the budget allocated for this in our country amounted to 270 million euros, although unfortunately it was reduced by the Popular Party to 200 million in 2018. However, the Government of Spain has provided the insurance system with 284.5 M€ for this 2024.
Therefore, the delegate considered that “this support, very necessary for the agricultural sector, must also involve the autonomous communities that must strengthen it by expanding regional contributions to complement each line of insurance to the maximum allowed”.