Last year, the Rural Support Service (RSS) paid out more than 602 million euros to farmers in various types of subsidies, thus exceeding the previous year’s record of 591.5 million euros and gaining the greatest support for farmers since Latvia’s accession to the EU.
However, this year the record will again be exceeded. The Ministry of Agriculture reports that the total amount of subsidies will be around 630 million euros, including both direct payments and support in the Rural Development Plan programs.
The greatest interest is in the support of small farms, breeding, development of rural tourism, fisheries (especially expansion of ponds), reforestation, as well as cleaning of municipal roads.
Last year, the biggest support – € 367 million – has traditionally been paid out in direct payments (over 40,000 customers), followed by € 193 million in various investment projects. The remaining 42 million euros were paid in a whole range of other support payments.
In total 102 project acceptance rounds were announced last year, with 9512 projects submitted and EUR 193 million support amount paid (compared to EUR 184 million in the previous year and EUR 113 million a year ago).
As reported by the RSS, 1587 different types of modernization projects were started in farms.
There have been foresters who have cleaned up to 17,400 ha of forests and built 28 fire towers to prevent forests from fires and other forest threats. Improvements of municipal rural roads were actively pursued by repairing 272 km of roads.
Source: la.lv
