Farmers Applied for Funding for 96,60 % of Agricultural Land

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Valeri Tsvetkov reported that 88 770 agricultural producers have applied for aid as part of the 2009 direct payment campaign.

Last year Bulgarian farmers applied for funding for 3 597 559 hectares, including agricultural land, grassland, common pastures and meadows. So far applications have been submitted for the funding of 3 475 243 hectares - 96,60 percent of the total area from last year.

The farmers who have the chance to use European funding are now 5000 more than they were in 2008.

The deadline for the farmers who could apply for direct payments without any sanctions expired on 15th of May. Producers who have submitted their applications before this date can make corrections in their forms by 31st of May.

Those producers who submit their applications between 15th and 31st of May will be sanctioned by 1 percent of the payments for each working day of delay. Farmers who make corrections or submit applications between 31st of May and 9th of July 2009 will also be sanctioned.

The Minister of Agriculture and Food described the campaign for submitting applications for single area payments scheme as "successful". In the 2008 campaign payments at the amount of 668 345 722 BGN were granted to the total of 74 903 applications. The processing of about 9 000 applications are now in the process of completion.