The Investment in agriculture holdings is a capital grant scheme, which will contribute to the improvement of the ineffective and non-competitive structure of agricultural holdings. The measure shall be implemented with priority for activating the agricultural potential at the same time with the valorisation of local resource in view of making efficient the practised exploitation to insure the agricultural income.
This measure will be put in practice taking into account operational objective to promotion of investments in animal and plant sectors at farm level, in order to restructure the perennials (vineyards and orchards), improve the farm buildings and to clothe it with new machinery and equipment.
For perennial crops (vineyards and orchards), it is expected to improve the age structure and the variety structure to high quality, which is one of the aims of this measure. In addition, the improvement of vegetable production, in particular early vegetable production, through the means of greenhouses reconstruction and modernisation is foreseen. Irrigation improvements, envisaged under this measure, will result in a reduction in production costs per unit in the priority sectors, due to stable yields, as well as efficient use of water, which is not the case with the current deteriorated on-farm irrigation systems (mainly furrow irrigation through open channels). Agricultural holdings from the plant production sector face an insufficient endowment of agriculture machinery in particular specialised machinery and equipment for cultivation and crop protection, with a high degree of physical and economic depreciation, so the measure will address this problem adequately.
The support to livestock breeding for milk and meat production aims at improving of animal welfare for breeding and hygienic conditions that will result in the improvement of products’ quality mainly in milk production. The support targets the dairy farms, which provide around 40% of the milk output on a national level and will not result in an increased milk output at national level at the end of the program. The improvement of the quality of the milk produced by the small-sized dairy farms will be addressed through supporting and prioritising group projects or projects submitted by agriculture cooperative as well as through investments in setting up and modernisation of regional milk collection centres envisaged in measure 2, since the small-sized dairy farms take significant share in the total milk output in the country. The micro farms, owning 1 to 3 cows, are considered as semi-subsistence farming and it is expected that their number will gradually shrink and eventually disappear due to their ineffectiveness and poor quality of milk not complying with the national requirements.
The main beneficiaries targeted with this respect are economically viable farmers (natural persons) or private agricultural enterprises responsible for carrying-out and financing the investments in the agriculture holding in a legal form of individual agriculture producers, agriculture co-operatives, trade companies established by association of agriculture producers and agriculture commercial companies; and within a range of specific requirements for the eligible size (ha or number of animals) of the holding per each of the concerned priority sector and in compliance with specific criteria to be respected with the proposed investments/projects in a form of business plan. The minimal conditions of viability for each sector of production are fixed in the measure, as regards the minimal and maximal agriculture area or the minimal and maximal number of animals bred, as regards the minimal technical conditions of breeding and feeding, and using of manure, as regards the minimal conditions in order to respect the national legislation of environment. The concerned investments must be compliant with the Community standards applicable for the concerned intervention area (priority sector) or bring the agriculture holding as a whole in accordance with the Community standards.
The groups of investments supported under this measure are as follows:
1011 Vineyards
1012 Orchards
1013 Vegetable production
1014 Breeding of dairy animals (milk)
1015 Breeding of animals for slaughter (meat)