Romanian Beekeepers May Access EU Funds If Organized In Associations

The Program, financed up to 50% from EU funds, allows beekeepers to buy bee families and backs investments in bee gardens or research in the field.

 

"The beneficiaries of the Program include beekeepers, private individuals, authorized private individuals or legal entities organized in beekeeping associations and unions, cooperatives or groups of producers established in compliance with the valid legislation," according to a government draft decision posted on the website of the Romanian Ministry of  Agriculture and Rural Development.

 

The activities funded via the Beekeeping Program must be different from those already stipulated in the National Rural Development Program (PNDR).

 

To access these funds, beekeepers must be part of an association in the field and hold a professional training certificate or diploma.

 

Funds are assigned based on an application the beekeeper must submit via the association he/she belongs to.

 

For this year‘s activities in the field, applications and all necessary papers must be submitted to the National Farming Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) by August 1, 2008.

 

For 2008, funds from the state budget, via the Ministry of Agriculture, reach 6.7 million lei (EUR1-RON3.7220), plus equal funds from the European Union.

 

EU funds annually earmarked to finance the National Beekeeping Program, conducted during 2008-2010, reach nearly EUR2 million annually, plus another EUR2 million from the state budget.

 

The data offered by the Ministry of Agriculture indicate that the total honey production in Romania reached 19,000 tons late 2007, of which, 10,500 tons were exported. The average honey consumption per capita reaches 0.5 kilograms annually.