UPA-UCE Extremadura has once again shown its displeasure with the Junta by describing as a "patch" the package of extraordinary and emergency aid approved last Tuesday, the 27th, by the Council of Government for cherry, cereal, and beekeeping farms, endowed with a total amount of 19,587,335 euros.
"The aid is clearly insufficient because it does not provide a response in keeping with the difficult situation faced by the Extremadura countryside," says the secretary general of this agricultural organization, Óscar Llanos.
The agricultural organization likewise reproaches the regional Executive for having "not" included the proposals that UPA-UCE put on the table to deal with the "difficult" situation of traditional olive groves, a crop whose continuity they consider "threatened" by the maintenance of "ruinous" prices and "high" production costs season after season.
Regarding cereal aid, UPA-UCE insists that they are "insufficient". The organization had proposed "more important" financial support, understanding that this is a sector especially hit by the increase in production costs and by "ruinous" prices dominating the market.
As for cherries, the agricultural organization stresses that it has been defending this sector "from minute one" when the damage occurred, collaborating with the regional Administration to achieve a specific support line for producers who suffered losses due to the weather conditions recorded last May.
UPA-UCE laments that, despite the Junta having room to allocate "more budget", the aid has finally remained "only a 70 percent support" on the part of the regional administration.
Regarding beekeeping, the organization considers that these subsidies represent "important support" for a sector "very hard hit and many times forgotten"; and it recalls that the beekeeping sector has been left "out" of all the Central Government aid "for not being considered a livestock sector".