The Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) has made payments for the 2023 application year totalling about 900,000 euros (over 4.4 million lei), and beneficiaries of European funds granted through the Rural Investment Financing Agency (AFIR) have received a total of 18.46 million euros in their accounts, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MADR) said on Wednesday.

According to a press release from the institution, on April 17, APIA made payments for the application year 2023 in the total amount of 4.4 million lei, as follows: 3.672 million lei from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (EAFRD), and 728,202.86 lei co-financing from the national budget (BN1).

„The interventions paid in this tranche are related to Measure 10 – Agri-environment and climate (Package 1, 2, 3 and Package 9 variant 9.2.1), Measure 11 – Organic farming (Submeasure 11. 1 – Package 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 and Submeasure 11.2 – Package 1, 2, 3, 4, 6) and Measure 13 – Payments for areas facing natural or other specific constraints (Submeasures 13.1 and 13.3),” the document says.

Beneficiaries of European funds granted through the Rural Investment Financing Agency have also received in their accounts non-reimbursable funds totalling 18.46 million euros. Through the payments made in the 15 April instalment, AFIR settled the expenditure made within the framework of investment projects in agriculture and rural development, as well as commitments for environmental and climate measures.

Of this amount, 13.7 million euros is paid from the EAFRD – European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, and 2.26 million euros from EURI – European Union Recovery Instrument. The remaining amount of 2.49 million euros is the contribution from the national budget.

„Most of the payments, 5.15 million euros, went into the accounts of farmers who claimed the settlement of expenditure for investments in agricultural and fruit holdings (under sub-measures 4.1, 4.1A, 6.1 and 6.3). In addition, 1.5 million euros was transferred to the accounts of processors for investments in processing plants (under sub-measures 4.2 and 4.2A). Over 2.5 million euros was paid out for public utility investments (under sub-measures 7.2 and 7.6) and 1.56 million euros for non-agricultural investments,” the ministry said.

In this payment round, Local Action Groups received 3.15 million euros for expenditure on local community development through the LEADER axis. Farmers received another 2.65 million euros for the settlement of crop insurance policies and AFIR paid over 1 million euros for compensation payments for environmental and climate measures.

AGERPRES