Bulgaria Farmland Subsidy Registration Procedures Clarified

Bulgaria's State Agriculture Fund announces plans for a more efficient registration of farmland eligible for state and European subsidies. Photo by BGNES

Bulgarian farmers will be clearly and systematically informed, for the first time, of their legitimate eligibility for subsidies for agricultural land they own.

A new scheme has been adopted by the Bulgarian Agriculture State Fund, which should remove previous confusion over which areas of agricultural land are liable for state and EU subsidies.

Kalina Ilieva, Executive Director of the Agriculture Fund, announced the new procedure on Tuesday, in a forum held for representatives of farming organizations.

The meeting was convened in order to clarify procedures and to identify new measures to overcome current problems concerning fragmentation and illegal use of agricultural land, which has already led to the imposition of European sanctions against Bulgaria.

The problem of overlapping claims has also been addressed by the new registration scheme. "Overlapping" has occurred in the past, when either two owners have declared their property and it has been double-claimed in error, or where the same land has been deliberately declared twice - a fraudulent act.

The EU imposed a fine of EUR 20 M on the country for infringements of registration of farmland in February, dating back to 2007 declarations of farmland. While this was less than the possible maximum statutory sanction, the Bulgarian government has decided to positively tackle this problem of double registration of land, whether inadvertent or fraudulent.

Accordingly, farmers and agricultural producers will be able, from March 1 to June 9, 2010, to confirm the size and area of the land they cultivate, so that they can receive direct payments from the European Agricultural Fund and from the national budget.

Farmers who suspect that their land has not been cleared will be able to ask the administration for the correct area of land cultivated by them to be marked up and confirmed by GPS survey.

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