The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has coordinated the payment, to date, of 4,347 million euros as payment of direct aid from the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which represents 89% of the total direct payments corresponding to the 2019 campaign.
Last week, nearly 100 million euros of direct aid were paid, without the exceptional situation, after the declaration of the state of alarm by COVID-19, altered the payment of aid to farmers.
The payment of the advances of the direct aid of the CAP of said campaign began on October 16, 2019, once the application and controls period ended, and ended on November 30, 2019. As of December 1, 2019 and until June 30, 2020, the payment of the balance of all direct aid is being made.
Although there are still more than 3 months before the payment period ends (June 30, 2020), Spain has requested the European Commission to extend it, exceptionally and without any type of penalties, until October 15, 2020 to ensure that no beneficiary is left without collecting their aid. The objective is that the payments of the 2019 campaign can be successfully completed.
Payment of CAP aid
The direct payments of the CAP represent more than 90% of the total annual payments of the EAGF (European Agricultural Guarantee Fund) and constitute an income guarantee for the 692,700 beneficiaries who submitted their aid application in 2019.
Distribution of the amounts paid, by aid schemes:
Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food
The Spanish Agrarian Guarantee Fund (FEGA) is normally carrying out the transfer of funds to the autonomous regions, which are implementing all the necessary mechanisms to make payments to farmers effective.
On the other hand, the Ministry concluded at the end of February the allocation of rights to the national reserve of basic payment, which has already authorized the payment of 100% of all decoupled aid for the 2019 campaign (basic payment, greening, youth farmers and smallholder scheme).
The final unit amounts of most production-related aid have also been published. This makes it possible to pay all the aid indicated below. The unit payment amounts can be found in the FEGA website.
- Aid associated with the cultivation of rice
- Aid associated with Protein Crops
- Aid associated with Nuts and Locust Beans
- Aid associated with Quality Pulses
- Aid associated with Sugar Beet
- Help associated with Tomato for Industry
- Aid associated with the farms that keep Vacas Nodrizas
- Aid associated with dairy cattle farms
- Aid associated with dairy cattle farms that maintained special rights in 2014
- Aid associated with sheep farms
- Aid associated with Caprino farms
- Associated aid for sheep and goat farmers who held special rights in 2014
It is only pending to establish the definitive unit amounts of the specific payment for the cultivation of cotton and the aid for bait. The eligibility requirements of these grants cannot be verified until the year following the year in which the application is submitted, which is why the final unit amount for payment, the calculation of which is based on the production units (hectares and number of animals) that meet these requirements, they are calculated every year before April 30, following the usual schedule agreed with the autonomous communities. And so it is planned to do it also in 2020.
