The Government of Cantabria, through the Ministry of Rural Development, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and the Environment, has begun to pay the direct aid that has exceptionally been granted this year to the livestock sector to compensate for the economic difficulties of the war in Ukraine in certain agricultural sectors.
It is an aid, for a total amount of 5,058,088 euros, financed with funds from the European Union and the General State Budgets, whose processing, resolution, justification, payment and control has corresponded to the Autonomous Executive, through the Ministry of Rural Development.
The number of beneficiaries in Cantabria has been 3,291 owners of livestock farms with suckler cow cattle (3,094); sheep and goats (152); fattening cattle (39), and rabbits (3).
How the aid has been distributed
The distribution of these funds, which have been distributed by the Spanish Agricultural Guarantee Fund (FEGA) to the paying agencies of the autonomous communities, has been carried out taking into account:
Increased costs and deterioration of margins.
The difficulty of transferring the increase in costs in the chain.
The effect of the disturbances in trade flows caused by the armed conflict and the difficulties of adapting to the new circumstances derived from its production cycle and its environmental value and generator of employment in rural areas.
The Minister for Rural Development, Livestock, Fisheries, Food and the Environment, Guillermo Blanco, has highlighted the importance of granting this aid to the livestock sector, which, in his opinion, “has been seriously affected by the disturbances caused by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia has provoked in the market”.
The increase in feed, according to the Cantabrian Government, since the beginning of the war “exceeds 20% in most cases, which is added, he said, to the accumulated price increases compared to last year, which they can even exceed 50% or 75% if compared to the prices of 2021 or 2020, respectively, something similar happening with the increase in the cost of diesel, electricity and phytosanitary products”.
