- The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAPA) allocates more than ten million euros to the Community of Madrid to promote a series of programs.
- More than 6 million euros are allocated for the school programs of fruit, vegetables and milk consumption.
- Other programs include measures to promote plant variety quality and certification; biodiversity and race improvement.
The Sectoral Conference on Agriculture and Fisheries yesterday agreed on the distribution of various credits to finance rural development interventions included in the National Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and various actions in the field of competitiveness co-financed through ERDF.
The Community of Madrid will receive 10,280,183.06 euros to implement the measures included in the Strategic Plan. Among them, the most important item is intended for School Programs for the consumption of fruit, vegetables and milk.
The CAP Strategic Plan includes support measures of a different nature, aimed at improving the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, ensuring the sustainable management of natural resources and action against the climate and achieving a balanced territorial development of rural areas. These measures are financed by the FEADER-AGE, which in this case contributes about 4 million, as well as the autonomous communities themselves.
School Program
The program that aims to promote the consumption of fruit and vegetables in the school population, contribute to the promotion of healthy habits and the reduction of obesity and other related diseases will receive the largest economic contribution with almost 6.3 million euros.
The programme involves the distribution of products from the fruit and vegetable sector in schools in order to strengthen not only their consumption, but also the knowledge of these products among the school population.
Quality of Plant Varieties
The plant variety quality program will receive just over 86,000 euros to invest in the improvement of varieties and certification of production materials. A program that can be accessed and that is implemented with the obtaining of a registration with which to market a quality and recognized product.
Other programs
Other programmes that will benefit from MAPA contributions will be the management and promotion of livestock improvement, the conservation of biodiversity and the official control of milk yield; while the apiculture sector intervention, which has an exclusive section due to its importance in the maintenance of diversity, will receive 20,000 euros from MAPA funds.