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Czech farmers will harvest just over 30,000 tons of fruit this year instead of the planned 138,000 tons of fruit due to April frosts. This was stated by Minister of Agriculture Marek Výborný from the KDU-ČSL after a meeting with representatives of fruit growers and winemakers on Thursday.
“Damage to fruit is historically the highest in the last hundred years. Regardless of the location of the orchard or the type of fruit, the damage in Bohemia is fatal,” Výborný said. According to him, losses in the grape harvest average 35 percent. Fruit growers calculated the losses at around one billion crowns, winemakers estimate the total bill at more than two billion.
To help affected farmers, the ministry activates the program of risks and crises in agriculture. “Regarding the extent of the damage, I work with a minimum amount of 100 million crowns. If we managed to get it to 200 million, we would be able to work meaningfully with it,” said the minister.
Insurances get double
According to Výborný, the amount will also depend on whether and how much money the government will receive from the crisis agricultural reserve of the European Union. The help should also concern forest nurseries that were affected by frost, as well as winegrowers. However, they claim that they are not asking the state for support.
“We didn’t come here with an outstretched hand. Rather, we came up with a number of technical measures that we would need in our field,” said SZ Byznys, president of the Winemakers’ Association, Martin Chlad. These include, for example, certain concessions in the ecological management regime. In order to meet the subsidy conditions, adjustments need to be made in it, but after the freezing of this year’s harvest, they are meaningless.
The minister agreed with the fruit growers on the criteria according to which financial assistance will be provided. “Support should go where the damage rate has exceeded 50 percent. In addition, the rates will be divided in such a way that higher support goes to those who have been damaged the most, i.e. from 90 to 100 percent,” said Výborný.
According to him, the program is notified by the European Commission in such a way that businesses that did not have commercial frost insurance will receive half as much support as those that did. “If someone took out insurance, it should not have a negative impact on state support, but the opposite,” the minister added.
According to him, even those companies that have invested in protection against hail and do not have insurance against frost will receive higher support, because insurance companies only offer these policies as additional to insurance against hail.
Farmers also want employment support
The ministry also promised help in the form of operating loans from the Support and Guarantee Fund for Farmers and Forestry for Small and Medium Enterprises. “There has been a shift here, last week the minister didn’t want to make any promises yet,” said Martin Ludvík, chairman of the Fruit Union, to SZ Byznys.
So far, the fruit growers are seeking an agreement with the ministry on possible employment support for large enterprises. “Those companies are supposed to supply retail chains, they have sorting and packaging lines, and their employees will have nothing to do all year,” says Ludvík.
In this context, the Ministry of Agriculture will also examine the possibility of activating the Kurzarbeit program introduced during the covid pandemic. “The program is notified, but for the effects of high energy prices, not for frost,” said Výborný.
Quarrel with the Agrarian Chamber
The Agrarian Chamber drew Výborný’s attention to the damage caused by the frost to other agricultural crops, especially vegetables. But the minister had no understanding for this type of communication.
“I am quite shocked by the meeting of the Agrarian Chamber. I learned about the letter five minutes before the press conference from ČTK, no one from the Agrarian Chamber contacted me,” he told journalists. “I will not act like this,” he added.
The Agrarian Chamber then responded to Excellent words on the X social network by stating that it only wanted to remind all growers of the crop damage. “Of course, it would be better if the Minister of Agriculture, Marek Výborný, remembered this himself,” added the chamber.
