Lithuanian agrimin calls on EC to cover farmers’ drought, swine fever losses

According to the minister, Lithuanian farmers are estimated to have incurred 0.5 billion euros in losses due to drought over the last summer.

“Although the European Commission underlined that drought is a an injured event and, therefore, is not compensated for, in Lithuania’s case farmers would have not received payouts, even if they were injured as insurance conditions are too stringent,” Surplys told BNS Lithuania after attending an informal meeting of EU ministers in charge of agriculture and fisheries in Vienna.

“The European commissioner pledged that the EC will respond to this difficult situation shortly,” he said.

The swine fever issue was also raised during the meeting, and the Lithuanian minister said the EC decision to ban exports with a 10-kilometer radius, in case of death of a single pig, was too strict as the pig industry suffers huge losses due to such a restriction.

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