The Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Canary Islands Government is finalizing an aid of 8 million euros to compensate the agricultural sector of the islands for the additional cost of animal feed.
The head of the department, Alicia Vanoostende, has addressed this issue in a meeting with agricultural and livestock organizations, as well as cheese factories in the islands, to guarantee the continuity of livestock farming in the Canary Islands in the face of the uncertainty generated by the international context and the increase in animal feed prices.
Vanoostende has reported on the work carried out with the large distribution to update cheese prices, with good prospects given that since April 1, improvements are being recorded in the payment of said product, according to the Regional Ministry in a statement.
Likewise, the draft of the food chain control plan and the importance of the forage plan based on direct subsidies to the seven councils so that they can develop their forage plan projects in each of the islands have been analyzed.
“We are agreeing on solutions to the additional cost of the price of milk that farmers are assuming in order to provide security to the continuity of livestock activity in a context of global uncertainty that is directly harming the Canary Islands countryside”, highlighted the regional head of the area.
In January, the autonomous department paid a direct aid of 7.6 million to the more than one thousand owners of goat, sheep, pig, cattle, rabbit and poultry farms affected by the health crisis of the coronavirus.
"This new aid, which will be very similar to those enabled for the coronavirus, will compensate the livestock sector in a crisis situation. It is about almost 16 million for the sector, to which must be added the 30 million from the Posei, which makes a total of 45 million in aid”, summarized the head of Agriculture.
According to the regional Executive, Vanoostende will continue to hold different meetings with the sector to "update the roadmap of the Ministry" and advance the main measures that will be promoted to "appease" the situation of livestock in the archipelago.