ZAGREB, April 6, 2018 – President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović on Friday opened the 21st Gudovac Spring Fair with 500 exhibitors from Croatia and 10 foreign countries, where she called for a comprehensive agrarian reform because, although 40 billion kuna has been invested in agriculture since Croatia declared independence, agricultural production has been halved.
Grabar-Kitarović underscored that this was the result of poor agrarian policies over the years because it wasn’t known what should be produced and for whom.
Nevertheless, she commended subsidies and amendments to legislation sponsored by the Ministry of Agriculture and the greater availability of EU funds and faster flow of money through these funds.
Agriculture Minister Tomislav Tolušić announced that as of May, farmers would have access to loans with much more favourable interest rates that will range from 0.5% to 1.5%, and that these would be even lower for dairy farmers and would be just 0.1% thanks to EU funds.
He said that last year 500 million euro of EU funds were invested in agriculture and that an equal amount would be invested this year, and that the results of the investments would be seen.
