In a news conference, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights Anton Refalo announced the opening of applications for the simplified EU Funds Scheme for Investments in Agriculture.
This scheme will support investments in the agricultural sector in order to promote modernization, innovation, and competitiveness. The ultimate purpose of this scheme is to make farmers more efficient and competitive. This scheme falls under the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for Malta 2023-2027 which is being implemented jointly by the Ministry for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights and the Ministry for European Funds, Equality, Reforms and Social Dialogue
The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Animal Rights Anton Refalo said how the purpose of this simplified scheme is to reduce the bureaucracy for applicants who want to carry out small projects and will be able to benefit from a refund of 50% of the eligible costs, up to a maximum grant of €15,000.
“For this sector we are seeing a massive budget that reaches €21 million co-financed by the European Union and national funds. What we are announcing today forms part of a series of measures that we have launched in the last months, weeks and years in order to continue to facilitate the work of our farmers and villagers. This is a Government that has never left these workers alone. Something that I hear and see whenever I talk to them, when I visit them in their fields and farms, the European Commissioner also noticed it when he visited our country, and we continued to see it in another successful edition of this year’s AgriFair,” concluded the minister.
The Director General of the Agricultural and Rural Payments Agency (ARPA) Louisa Formosa explained that these projects must relate to productive investments in farms. She continued that the support under this scheme is open to all farmers, both individuals, companies, as well as groups of farmers, such as cooperatives or partnerships. Beneficiaries must be registered in the register of the Department of Agriculture known as IACS.
The beneficiaries must be carrying out a minimum agricultural activity as defined in the guidelines found on the website www.fondi.eu . Apart from that, for investments related to horticulture the beneficiaries must have land registered in the IACS system which must form part of the submitted application.
This call for applications under this simplified scheme will remain open until Wednesday 19 June 2024. For more information one can call directly on 22926148 and visit here .
