VALENCIA. (EP) The Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, Climate Emergency and Ecological Transition has increased by 17% the funds destined to subsidize the contracting of agricultural insurance by Valencian farmers and ranchers. Thus, the final budget to cover this line is a total of 28.5 million, four million more than initially planned.
This increase seeks to cover “adequately” the existing demand in the sector and has been carried out after a series of recent and successive budgetary modifications approved by the Consell that have allowed to increase “substantially” the money used by the Autonomous Administration for help farmers and ranchers in the Valencian Community to contract their policies, the Generalitat has indicated in a statement.
The Minister of Agriculture, Mireia Mollà, has assured that the agricultural insurance system constitutes a “fundamental” instrument to support income, while “providing the necessary security that professionals need to carry out their work.” “As we are aware of their importance, we have made an additional economic effort aimed at promoting the stability required by the sector,” he added.
The subsidies that the Ministry of Agriculture contributes to agricultural insurance are applied in the form of a discount on the value of the policy that the farmer or rancher subscribes and the savings they represent for the professional can reach up to 65% of the market value of the insurance hired.
For his part, the regional secretary for Agriculture and Rural Development, Roger Llanes, stressed that we have one of the “most solid and advanced agricultural insurance systems in the world” and “that is largely due to the support decided that the administrations lend themselves to their maintenance and that last year more than 30,000 Valencian farmers benefited from them “.
During the year corresponding to 2019, a total of 32,362 policies were signed in the Valencian Community that served to provide insurance coverage to an area of 170,347 hectares and around 42,000 animals.
The Community is the autonomous community that contributes the most budget to the agricultural fund, a commitment that, according to the Ministry, “maintains and extends” with this increase aimed at ensuring that the increase in the policy does not have an impact on a reduction in the income of farmers and livestock.
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