Over the coming years, the Czech agriculture ministry wants to support and motivate fruit and vegetable growers and animal breeders, Agriculture Minister Marian Jurečka told the daily Hospodářské noviny adding that he wants them to enlarge and invest more money into their production.
Those who are focused on large scale production of one commodity, such as wheat, corn, or rape seed, are unlikely to get generous state subsidies in the future, the minister said.
Under the ministry’s new strategy, which supports production of perennial crops, the area of fruit orchards in the Czech Republic should double by the year 2030. Currently, orchards take up less than 20,000 hectares of land, which is half the total occupied in the year 2000.
Production of pigs, which has halved since 2004, from over three million to some 1.5 million, is expected to increase by a third, according to the Czech Radio.
According to the minister, it is essential that Czech farmers learn not only to produce crops or stock but also how to sell them. He said that better connections between farmers and the food producers would foster better stability and competitiveness.
© 2016 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by László Juhász. To subscribe to ESM: The European Supermarket Magazine, click here.
