Agriculture, EU – Baltic States, Funds, Latvia, Markets and Companies

The aid is based on the rate of EUR 16.14 per ton of milk. The dairy farmers, who are members of recognized dairy cooperatives or who own more than 50% of shares in a dairy company, would get aid at the rate of EUR 17.75 per ton.

There is no need for farmers to send applications to the Rural Support Service to receive the aid. The organization will calculate and transfer the payments based on the information about eligible farmers supplied by the Agricultural Data Center.

The payments are due to farmers, who supplied at least 500 kilograms of milk during the period between March and August in 2016.

As reported, the Latvian government on May 3 approved the Agriculture Ministry's proposal for the amendments to the regulations about the EU conditional adjustment aid to dairy farmers. The amended regulations provide for additional state aid to complement the EU conditional adjustment aid in order to help milk producers to deal with the steep loss of income after Russia slapped embargo on imports of dairy products from the EU in August 2014.

The additional aid has been approved because the EU and national aid granted to milk producers so far had been insufficient by far to compensate for the lost income and farmers experienced serious financial problems. Moreover, milk purchase price that had been climbing for the previous few months has now started falling again and is likely to decline further in the summer season.