Thursday, March 28

The Government gives the green light to the use of fallow land


A tractor plows a fallow field. / TODAY

In addition, in this package of measures and subsidies for the agricultural sector due to the war in Ukraine, aid of more than 430 million euros has been allocated

The Council of Ministers has approved this Tuesday an aid package for the agricultural sector, at the proposal of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, endowed with more than 430 million euros, collected in the Royal Decree-law by which measures are adopted within the framework of the plan to respond to the impact of the war in Ukraine, with direct aid of 169 million euros for milk producers and which also gives the green light to the use of fallow land.

The Government has reiterated that the primary sector is “strategic” due to its importance in supplying food in sufficient quality and quantity and for the development of sustainable agricultural and fishing activity.

Green light for the use of fallow land

It should be noted that the regulation that has been approved this Tuesday also includes the regulatory modification by which farmers are exempted from the obligation to leave 5% of their cultivation areas fallow and the diversification requirement is made more flexible.

According to the Ministry, with this measure it will be possible to mobilize more than 600,000 hectares declared as areas of ecological interest, as well as 2.16 million hectares declared to meet the requirement of crop diversification.

In this way, the agricultural sector will have more land to produce cereals, especially corn, and oilseeds such as sunflower, products that were imported from the Ukraine, and thus improve the supply of these products in Spain.

The sector will also benefit from the set of measures in the energy field (electricity, gas and renewable energy) included in the royal decree law to help the economy as a whole with positive impact measures for farmers, ranchers and fishermen.

Fallows in Extremadura

It should be noted that Extremadura has 420,000 fallow hectares to be cultivated: 370,064.37 in the province of Badajoz and 50,123.9 in that of Cáceres, according to information provided by the Ministry of Agriculture to TODAY. Similar amount to that of the year 2020 (425,173.3 hectares) and that of 2019 (426,000).

If the analysis were limited exclusively to the fallow associated with the collection of the green payment, called ecological interest (they pay you for not cultivating 5% of the land), the data would be much lower: 33,484.29 hectares.

Other measures

Among the main measures, the Government is going to make available to milk producers a total of 169 million euros in direct aid, since it is one of the sectors most affected by the increase in costs due to the price of electricity, animal feed and fuel caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In this way, 124 million euros will be allocated to the cow’s milk production sector (210 euros per cow up to a maximum of 40 animals per beneficiary, 145 euros per animal between 41 and 180 heads, and 80 euros for more than 180 cows ), 32.3 million euros for sheep milk producers (15 euros per animal) and 12.7 million euros for goat milk producers (10 euros per head).

The department led by Luis Planas has specified that these direct aids will be managed “urgently and immediately”, once the royal decree law comes into force.

In addition, the Ministry has recalled that these direct aid and community subsidies are joined by the reduction of 20 cents for three months in the price of diesel for all citizens, which, according to consumption data from previous years, would mean a positive impact of 78 million euros for farmers and ranchers.

The agricultural sector, as stated in the royal decree to alleviate the effects of the drought on agriculture and livestock, with measures valued at almost 450 million euros, will benefit from the postponement in the payment of social security contributions for three months.


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