In her remarks, Minister Krifca said that in addition to subsidizing the price of energy and introduction of Social Resilience Package, the Price Transparency Boards are also monitoring the prices of agricultural inputs.

“In the last meeting it was agreed that the prices of agricultural inputs should be kept at the cost level and the profit margin should not exceed the 2% rate. The national support scheme also provides support through tax-free diesel oil for farmers. This fund increased by 500 million ALL,” she said.

According to her, tax-free oil delivers impact on a wide range of production systems.

“Until March 23, there are 38 thousand applications for 9.4 million liters of diesel oil. Meanwhile, we have extended the deadline for applications until March 30,” said the minister.

The Minister stressed that through these schemes we support wheat and maize, vital products which have been hit hard by the war in Ukraine.

“Preliminary data show that about 40% of the area cultivated with wheat and 50% of the area cultivated with maize will be supported by the National Scheme. The data make us hopeful that the areas cultivated with maize and those with wheat will maintain the same levels as in the last three years. “All the aforementioned measures have been taken in order not to discourage farmers from planting these crops and to ease their burden of costs as well,” she said.

The minister added that the prices have soared due to Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In her remarks, Minister Krifca also focused on the policies to support farmers.
“The government in 2019 reduced to zero the VAT on agricultural inputs for importers of agricultural products. Yet, the farmers failed to translate this into cheaper prices, which was the goal of this policy,” Krifca said.

The Minister stressed that amid this situation, instruments have been developed to facilitate production systems that are affected by increase in the price of inputs.
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