This Plan foresees the call, during February, of a new aid to encourage the efforts and commitments of modernization of the producing sector.
The Consell Insular de Menorca, the Consellería de Agricultura, Pesca y Medio natural and the dairy sector of the island have signed this Thursday the third edition of the Plan de Apoyo para la Viabilidad, Modernización, Promoción y Comercialización del Sector Lácteo de Menorca (PROVILAC). The Plan foresees eight actions for this 2024.
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The Consell Insular de Menorca, the Balearic Government and the dairy sector sign new commitments
“This new agreement allows us to continue moving forward to guarantee a fair price for the milk produced in Menorca. The Consell Insular and the Balearic Government work together with the sector to find solutions that can help the viability of the dairy sector. But not only this, we also focus on the modernization, promotion and marketing of Menorcan milk. We defend the Menorcan countryside,” explained the president of the Consell Insular de Menorca, Adolfo Vilafranca.
The main objective of the agreement is to “raise the livestock income of the dairy cattle sector to improve the viability, profitability and competitiveness of the sector,” said the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment, Joan Simonet. Thus, this Plan incorporates, with respect to previous years, a new aid to encourage the efforts and commitments to modernize the productive sector.
In this sense, the counselor wanted to remember that “we have to continue exploring new structural measures to implement actions that allow us a more stable solution and to ensure the survival of the sector. Thus, this new aid, which will be processed with a single application, is divided into three tranches. In the first, all farmers will receive 0.025 euros per liter declared in deliveries to first buyers of raw milk or declared as direct sales; in the second tranche, the aid will be applied on the liters of milk declared as direct sales or delivered to a cooperative or organization of agricultural producers of which the producer is a member and only for the liters given, or to a dairy industry with which it maintains a contractual relationship of a duration exceeding one year and with a price located in the average island-wide. The aid will be equivalent to 0.020 euros per liter declared and calculated on the number of census cows.
“What we value with this aid is to prioritize the entrepreneurial initiative of farmers and their commitment to producer organizations, and also to achieve loyalty between producers and processors, and avoid market disruptions,” explained the director general of Agriculture, Livestock and Rural Development, Fernando Fernandez. The third and final tranche comprises an extraordinary aid of 0.025 euros per liter declared, provided that two commitments are made: to implement the digital notebook in the voluntary period (until March 1) and one of the following two options: to install the Livestock Management Module of those available on the market or to present a business plan that includes productive aspects.
Another new feature of this Plan is the line aimed at dairy industry operators to cover the additional costs of milk processing. It comprises two amounts: compensation for a dairy operator to start a new economic activity and compensation for the effort to increase production based on an existing activity. The new PROVILAC also foresees actions to improve the transparency of the dairy value chain, such as the Livestock Production Service applying the Control Plan for Dairy Contracts and Compulsory Declarations to the unified information system of the dairy sector (INFOLAC) to all operators involved or several measures to improve the profitability of the sector such as an aid addressed to dairy operators to cover additional costs in milk processing; the call during 2024 for a line of INEA to promote investment, recapitalization and modernization of the dairy sector, and also the implementation of projects such as the development of three experimental fields in sustainable animal feed by the Institute for Agri-Food and Fisheries Research and Training (IRFAP).
Another of the actions included in this third edition of PROVILAC is aimed at increasing the volume of production and marketing of Mahón-Menorca Protected Designation of Origin cheese, through a greater specific effort aimed at promotion, new marketing channels and circuits, and the opening of new markets. The contribution of the Regional Ministry will be 200,000 euros for this year and the Consell will add up to 100,000 euros from the agreement with the Regulatory Council of the Protected Designation of Origin Mahón-Menorca. In addition, Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment will continue with the economic support to the Protected Designation of Origin Mahon-Menorca through the line of promotion of differentiated quality brands and support for the promotion and marketing of domestic markets, which represent an endowment of 140,000 euros.
The agreement was signed by the president of the Consell de Menorca, Adolfo Vilafranca; the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment, Joan Simonet; and representatives of the Union of Farmers of Menorca, FAGME, AGRAME, the Association of Manufacturers and Cheese Makers of Menorca, the Association Frisona Balear, the PDO Mahon-Menorca and Agri-Food Cooperatives of the Balearic Islands. It should be remembered that the island’s dairy sector is made up of one hundred and three dairy farms, forty artisan cheese dairies, thirty-seven maturers and nine industrial dairies, which produced 3,428 tons of cheese in 2022.