EU to Extend Support to Farmers over Russia Food Ban by One Year

The European Commission has decided to extend by a year the safety net measures for the European agricultural producers affected by the Russian ban on food imports from the European Union.

The EU Commission said in a statement it is finalising the last details with a view to formally adopting the relevant legal decisions in the coming weeks.

"The significant actions taken to date by the European Union ? have played an important part in mitigating the effects of the ban. Now, almost a year later, with the ban prolonged, we need to continue to provide a safety net in order to give security to producers who continue to face difficulties in relation to the ban," Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said.

For the fruit and vegetables sector, the foreseen measures may enter into force as of next week, while for the dairy sector they will be in place as of 1 October.

For the dairy sector, the measures that are currently in place consist of public buying-in and private storage aid for both butter and skimmed milk powder. Without an extension these safety net measures would come to an end on 30 September 2015.

For fruit and vegetables, the Commission proposes to extend by one year the measures that ended on 30 June 2015, covering the main groups of fruit and vegetables affected by the Russia ban. These measures consist in withdrawals of produce for free distribution of fruit and vegetables to charitable organisations and withdrawals of products for other purposes (such as animal feed, composting, distillation), as well as the so called 'non-harvesting' and ' green harvesting' measures.

Bulgarian agricultural producers have suffered BGN 82 M (EUR 41 M) in lost revenue as a result of the Russian ban on food imports from the West,...