Negotiations with the EU are addressing the issue of not granting area payments to "sofa farmers".

Today, May 14, the Saeima Requests Commission held a meeting dedicated to the current affairs of farmers' non-governmental organizations, where 19 issues that are relevant to farmers and are at various stages of being discussed in the Saeima were discussed. The "Farmers' Saeima" was represented by the head of the office, Rita Ignāte, agricultural policy expert, Mārtiņš Trons, and council member Jānis Bērziņš.

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The question that interested the Saeima members was about the conditions for direct payments and who will be able to receive them in the future. We, the association "Farmers' Council", explained that European Union (EU) funds should be received by those farmers who are engaged in agricultural production, not by "sofa farmers" who only mow the grass from their fields once a year.

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Rita Ignāte, head of the office of the association "Farmers' Council", admitted: "Negotiations with representatives of the European Union are addressing the issue of so-called sofa farmers, who are not engaged in agricultural production, not receiving EU area payments. I assume that the EU, perhaps not this year, but soon enough, could include "sofa farmers" on the negative list, who are not entitled to area payments. To achieve this, the Ministry of Agriculture is continuing negotiations with EU representatives on this issue."

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"It would be more beneficial if the relevant agricultural lands were used for cattle grazing, for example," acknowledged Mārtiņš Trons, agricultural policy expert at the "Farmers' Parliament".

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Turning to other issues, MP Inguna Rībena raised the issue of genetically modified organisms production at the commission meeting. In turn, MPs Ilma Čepāne and Augusts Brigmanis expressed their opinion on the effectiveness of the upcoming amendments to the law, which plan to limit the amount of agricultural land that can be purchased by one person.

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Source: LETA