It is necessary to look for other European funds, outside of agricultural ones, to finance agriculture in view of climate change. This opinion was expressed by the agriculture ministers of the Visegrad Group at a meeting in Poznan, Poland, where they discussed the post-flood situation and possible future joint EU action. New solutions need to be sought on the functioning of the EU climate change crisis reserve, Minister Tahov said.
He pointed out that farmers need relevant support tools to deal with the consequences of drought and floods. He recalled that this year unusually high temperatures and a long period of drought affected thousands of farms. According to him, this led to a decrease in this year's average yields of corn and sunflower. "In addition, our country experienced a series of unprecedented fires. The restoration of the burned farms and areas will take enormous time and financial resources, which creates a real risk of abandoning agricultural activity," said Minister Tahov.
During the meeting of the ministers from the Visegrad Group (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and the Slovak Republic) and Bulgaria and Romania, the future challenges to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were also discussed. Minister Georgi Tahov pointed out that, above all, the CAP needs an adequate budget that provides a fair level of support to farmers, which would bring security to the sector. He also reiterated the need to preserve successful policy instruments such as direct payments. According to him, their preservation in the future will guarantee a contribution to the achievement of decent incomes for those employed in agriculture. "Priority should be given to achieving equalization in the levels of direct payments and external convergence, so that farmers in countries with lower payments can be on an equal footing with other farmers in the EU," he also said.