Asaja Castilla-La Mancha has again demanded that the regional executive branch enable its own resources to reinforce the aid intended to offset the increase in the cost of fertilizers, after various communities have implemented or announced additional measures to ease the production costs for their farmers.
The agricultural organization has pointed out that Aragón has published today a call for aid that includes regional funding of 9 million euros to mitigate the rise in fertilizer and energy costs resulting from the crisis in the Middle East, adding to initiatives approved by other regional governments, it said in a statement.
For Asaja, these decisions show that the autonomous communities have room to get involved financially and to strengthen the aid aimed at the countryside. For this reason, it considers “unjustifiable” that Castilla-La Mancha, a territory where agriculture has a key economic and social weight, has not yet announced an additional allocation of its own funds to deal with the increase in the price of fertilizers.
The organization has emphasized that the 8.9 million euros allocated to Castilla-La Mancha from the European agricultural reserve are clearly not enough to compensate for the increases that farms have to bear.
It has also stressed that the regulations allow autonomous communities to complement these aids with their own financing of up to 200% of the European allocation, which would make it possible to mobilize nearly an additional 18 million euros in Castilla-La Mancha.
Along these lines, Asaja has asked the Junta to take advantage of the processing of the General Budgets of Castilla-La Mancha for 2027 to include a specific item earmarked for these aid, as the agricultural organization has been requesting due to the absence of concrete measures to contain the increase in production costs.
The entity has warned that the rise in fertilizer prices, especially nitrogen-based ones, continues to put pressure on the profitability margins of agricultural holdings, which also must absorb the increase in other inputs and uncertainty in the markets.
He has also pointed out that this is an expense that has a widespread impact across different crops and directly determines the economic viability of the next campaigns. Likewise, he has recalled that the aids of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) are not designed to compensate for increases in production costs, but to meet the requirements and commitments arising from Community regulations.
Therefore, the organization considers it essential to put in place extraordinary and specific mechanisms that will make it possible to deal with a situation that is reducing farm income.