EU funds available for agricultural projects

A new call for project proposals has been made under Measure 3.2 of the EU's Structural Funds Programme, which is intended to give support to investments that improve or establish new outlets for agricultural produce.

The project would be aimed at improving the return to the wholesaler or the processor as long as the farmer benefits as well.

The call was made by the Rural Development Department within the Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs.

The measure aims at identifying and exploiting new innovative marketing channels and outlets in both marketing and processing, leading to new patterns of cooperation and working relationships between producers and processors, while ensuring the improvement of quality of the product that is offered for sale to the consumer.

Under this measure, eligible applicants are processors of local agricultural goods, farming businesses, farmers' cooperatives, farm associations or groups of farmers adequately contracted to complete a collaborative project, who can demonstrate that they have adequate security of tenure on the land identified for the investment and have their business located within Malta. Under this measure, producer groups will be considered as eligible for market oriented investments while establishment and running costs will be covered under the RDP Guarantee measure.

Fifty per cent of the investment will come from public funds while the remaining 50 per cent will be financed by the applicant. Public funding will be partly financed by the European Union (70 per cent) and the remaining 30 per cent will be financed by the government. The higher threshold for eligible project size has been set to €250,000 (Lm107,325) per applicant while the lower threshold for an eligible project size will be €1,000 (Lm429.30) per applicant. Investments carrying an expenditure higher than €250,000 (Lm107,325) will be only eligible for a maximum grant of €125,000 (Lm53,662.50). Applicants would need to finance the remaining part.

Applications can be collected from the Rural Development Department, Ministry for Resources and Rural Affairs and IACS Office Gozo or downloaded from the internet available on the website www.agric.gov.mt.

Requests for clarifications and further information or questions can be made via e-mail on rdd.mrae@gov.mt or by calling 25904 268/187. The closing date for the submission of applications is April 18 at noon.