Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 14-02-06

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From: The Athens News Agency at <http://www.ana.gr/>

CONTENTS

[01] Gov't taking into consideration farmers' issues, Agriculture minister says at major fair

[01] Gov't taking into consideration farmers' issues, Agriculture minister says at major fair

As farmers rallied outside the Agrotica premises from noon on and planned country-wide protests over the regulations, Tsaftaris appeared optimistic about the ongoing dialogue with farmers and his contacts with the Finance ministry, which he said would issue by this coming week a circular clarifying some of the measures and adding some flexibility to them.

He said all objections raised by farmers were being considered, and many of them accepted, by the Finance ministry, with official confirmation expected even as early as Monday.

Some of the issues concern the keeping of accounting books on expenditures and revenues, which will be modified to once a year for those earning under 10,000 euros and twice annually for those above the amount. It will then be decided if it goes into effect monthly. The FinMin he said also accepted as a reasonable demand the need for more flexibility in declaring expected income, especially as unforeseeable events like bad weather precluded farmers from declaring a specific quantity of produce and final pricing for it.

Other issues that have been raised by farmers include how to declare expenditures when no formal receipts are issued by renters of farming equipment or providers of petrol for agricultural usage. The agency, for example, that insures farmers against crop failure (ELGA) does not issue receipts, creating problems to farmers who are still waiting for subsidies and need to declare insurance as expenditure.

"We are on the same side," Tsaftaris said, "we are listening to your experiences, and we are prepared to move to improvements." He defended the keeping of books as a way of proving the true provenance of products, avoiding fake receipts and preventing problems in rebates like VAT or the special consumer tax for farm petrol.

In other comments at Agrotica, Tsaftaris hailed the importance of farmers markets, which he said would reduce the gap between producer and consumer prices. He said the institutional framework for these markets was completed and, along with other changes in how agricultural products could be marketed, would "help make agriculture again a pillar of growth in Greece during these hard times."

Meanwhile, this past week farmers decided to block parts of the Thessaloniki-Athens national highway and of main junctures in the rural road network as of Monday. Thessaly farmers plan to block the Nikea turnoff on the Athens-Thessaloniki highway, near the central city of Larissa, and another block was planned for Tuesday by northern Evros prefecture farmers at the Orestiada turnoff.

The farmers' national coordination body is meeting over the weekend to decide on plans for the coming week. Protests are focusing on the high cost of production and loans to agriculture.

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