The European Commission plans on subsidies and support for the agricultural sector later will impose discriminative conditions for CEE farmers, limiting theirs ability to compete

The group of Lithuania‘s agricultural companies „Agrowill Group“ has evaluated the European Commission future plans for the agricultural sector and concludes, the latter will continue an unreasonable limit of Central and Eastern European countries, among them - Lithuania, Poland and other neighboring EU countries possibilities to compete equally within an agricultural market after year 2013.
After the European Commission has announced a project on reforms in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2013, reasoned complaints on discriminative conditions for cultivators has appeared in Europe and pickets have been organized.
„Currently agriculture of different EU member states is subsidized differently, its support varies for several times – farmers of the Eastern European countries receive 3-fold lower direct payments, comparing to the average in the EU. This situation is going to remain the same in the future, too. As a matter of fact, in terms of CEE it means, their farmers continue suffering discriminative conditions in comparison with ones from the Western Europe, - Vladas Bagevicius, the Head of „Agrowill Group“ Board puts it and goes on –  a competition with foreign meat and dairy manufacturers will be complex even within local market as a cost price of imported products is lower then the manufactured home.”
The Head of Board has spoken for an imperative to level subsidies for all the EU member states and to impose equal conditions to compete from year 2014.
V. Bagavicius has underlined one more limit that European Commission supposes to be implemented in its plans – the EU support will be reduced for large effective farms, as top limits for direct payments are applied.
„The EU citizens hope to eat healthy food, they afford to buy. Larger farms could operate effectively thus reducing cost price of its production. That means, the final food prices could be lower, too. In case direct payments are paid only for the small farms, there are two defective ways to tackle this issue: to separate farms into smaller ones or to legitimize unfair discrimination. We are sure, that support should be given according to square of cultivated land, but not according to an amount of profit, a farm generates. Unnaturally promoted separation of farms means remaining only minor manufacturers, failed to compete with large companies from Europe and rest of the world“, - V. Bagavicius states.
He has accented, that the EU has set too strict requirements for product quality. In order to meet the mentioned quality standards, our farmers need to use modern technology, small farms have no financial possibility to purchase. Thus, if we seek to compete within the EU market, our farms should be enlarged. One of ways could be cooperation.
The Head of one of the largest companies in the agricultural sector declares that the EU plans for the agriculture require long discussions and agreement on interests. State must do its best to achieve the same amount of support for Lithuania, Poland and other EU countries in this region farmers as one is given to the Western Europe.

For more information, please contact:
Vladas Bagavičius, Chairman of the Board of Agrowill Group AB, tel. +3710 610 31807

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