For the first time, a European budget for investment in rural tourism (around 10m euros) will be available and this call will be launched in April.
This year, farmers will receive 58 million euros from the IPARD Fund. Agriculture Minister Branislav Nedimovic has announced that in 2020 they will be able to apply for co-financing from the European budget for the procurement of new tractors, as well as for the construction of warehouses, greenhouses, farms and raising orchards.
Producers are expected to compete more for subsidies and money to invest in processing in the coming period. Five calls for proposals are planned. One call – for investment in processing – is ongoing and runs through the end of February. For the first time, a budget for investing in rural tourism (around 10 million euros) will also be available, and that call is likely to be announced in April. Nedimovic explained that this money is intended for those who are engaged in agriculture, who want to market their food to tourists, but also for investments in infrastructure. He stressed that this is very important for both Eastern and Western Serbia.
Serbia received a budget of 225 million from IPARD funds over a four-year period. Two years ago, our country formally fulfilled the conditions to use the money from the European Pre-accession Fund for Agrarian Policy, but practically it was not until 2019 that we started withdrawing money.
Nedimovic recently stated that since we have been accredited, seven calls have been made, and that about 70 percent of the money is directed towards agricultural producers. Some of that money has already been paid and the rest of the claim is still being processed. So far, the biggest interest has been in buying tractors and as much as 60 percent of requests have just arrived for the purchase of machinery. According to IPARD rules, 65 percent of the grant is funded from the common budget, while the remaining 35 are invested by a farmer. According to information from December last year, 1,173 requests have been made to six public calls under IPARD so far, estimated at around 103.6 million euros, Politika reports.
