Recently, I had a conversation with agricultural expert Ivan Kopilović, who compared data on the size of agricultural land in Croatia and EU member states, showing that in our country, the size of holdings is only one-third of the EU average. This has long been our ailment, and for who knows how many times we emphasize that we need to make drastic, painful cuts and start encouraging real agricultural producers by consolidating agricultural land and those with higher economic value of production that has the potential to increase further.
Every rule, as they say, has an exception, and I could say, although not with certainty, that there could be an exception in our agricultural policy (well, it’s not a rule, but a policy) of strengthening agricultural holdings and pushing hobby farmers into the background. I am thinking of encouraging young farmers. Today, they make up about 15 percent of all farmers, while the targeted percentage is 20 percent to revitalize agriculture generationally.
Small but Valuable
Currently, the Proposal for the Regulation on the Implementation of Intervention 75.01 – Establishment of Young Farmers from the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy 2023 – 2027 is in public discussion. This regulation should encourage young farmers to invest in production. One of the criteria is that young farmers whose agricultural holding has an annual economic value of ten thousand euros can apply for support. There are other criteria, but to avoid complicating matters, we will take just this one to stimulate discussion.
In principle, we should support the creation of stronger agricultural holdings, while hobby farms should be co-financed through other measures, perhaps social ones or those aimed at preserving the tradition of small farmers. I am not sure if it would be wise to implement such a policy when it comes to young farmers. However, if we want to be fair and objective, the minimum annual production value of ten thousand euros is not a significant amount for a young farmer to live on. On the other hand, precisely because they are young, I think the policy should have more lenient criteria for them, encouraging them regardless of the fact that the value of their production is not high.
In this sense, many farmers and organizations are participating in the public discussion, and among the more frequent comments are those suggesting that this minimum threshold should even be lowered. One person believes that the minimum economic size of the holding should be reduced to at least three thousand euros. The reason is that the state should encourage young farmers who have started working and creating from scratch, as such agricultural holdings have no chance of achieving high economic value and competing with large holdings in most other tenders. ‘At least allow young people who have started and truly want to engage in agriculture to equip their agricultural holdings in at least one tender,’ writes this farmer.
