Earlier this year, the payment of hectare and head subsidies to about 34.000 farmers and 3.000 stockbreeders will begin, whose representatives met at noon with President Anastasiadis. According to the schedule, the Cyprus Agricultural Payments Organization will be able to release the money on December 1st of this year.
The General Secretary of EKA, Panikos Hambas, said in statements that "they will be paid this year until Christmas. This is a positive development. An additional budget goes to the Parliament as soon as it opens. "
In his turn, the KOAP Commissioner Timis Efthymiou stated that "so we hope that by Christmas they will have been paid, and this is done for the first time in order to help our agricultural sector."
During the meeting, the agricultural organizations received presidential commitments to solve all the problems they raised before President Anastasiadis and the Ministers of Agriculture, Economy, Labor and Trade. Among them, the management of the effects "generated" by the drought, but also the creation of a body for the promotion of agricultural products.
The Deputy Government Spokesman Viktoras Papadopoulos stated in his statements that "the President of the Republic addressed all the requests that were put before him together with the Ministers and solutions have been launched for all issues, immediate solutions for some issues and elaboration to find the most appropriate solutions to other issues. "
At the same time, compensation is being launched for the affected and beneficiary farmers, whose crops were damaged between 2011 and 2012. To this end, the Minister of Agriculture has taken on the responsibility of finding additional funds from savings.