Outer Regions combine in appeal

Azores and Madeira identify agricultural crisis

JM reports that the Outermost Regions of Portugal have joined forces, with the Regional Government of the Azores, together with the Madeiran executive, sending a letter to the Minister of Agriculture, requesting “urgent and adequate responses to the increase in production costs in the agricultural and livestock sector”.

The information is revealed today on the Internet portal of the Government of the Azores, indicating that the letter is signed by the presidents of the Azorean executives, José Manuel Bolieiro, and Madeiran, Miguel Albuquerque.

In the letter, the government officials request that at the Agriculture Council, on January 17, in Brussels, “Portugal defends with the other Member States and the European Commission the need to find, at European level, an adequate response to the present crisis, in particular for the most vulnerable regions, such as the Outermost Regions”.

“As is well known, in recent months the production costs of the agricultural sector have experienced a strong and continuous increase, due to the increase in the prices of various production factors, in particular cereals used for animal feed, fertilizers and fuels”

from the letter sent to Maria do Céu Antunes.

According to the note from the Azorean executive, the governments of the Outermost Regions stress that “the impact of the crisis is felt throughout the European Union’s agricultural sector” and is “particularly aggravated in the Portuguese autonomous regions as a result of all factors that determine their outermost condition”.

In the letter, the regional executives also recall that the need to take into account the Outermost Regions was recognized, on the initiative of Portugal and Spain, in the conclusions of the Agriculture Council of December 2021 on the Contingency Plan “to guarantee food supply and the food security in times of crisis”.

“This critical situation, in part generated by the covid-19 crisis, is very worrying and has had a strong negative impact on the agricultural sectors of the autonomous regions of the Azores and Madeira, already calling into question the viability and continuity of many farms and related activities”

he message addressed to the holder of the Agriculture portfolio in the Government of the Republic.