Market News & Headlines >> EU Proposes Farm Aid, Planting on Set-Aside Acres

In an effort to mitigate supply disruptions and food price spikes caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union appears set to allow producers to temporarily grow crops on the nearly 6% of EU agricultural land that is set aside to boost biodiversity.

According to European Commission proposals published on Wednesday, the EU is also set to distribute $500 million euros in aid to farmers hardest hit by higher fuel and feed costs.

The proposals also include some $330 million euros in emergency aid to Ukraine, some of which is to help farmers there sow corn and sunflowers and manage wheat fields. The EU executive said its efforts would concentrate on ensuring availability of seeds and diesel, much of the latter requisitioned by the military, with Poland for example freeing up some of its strategic reserves.

The Commission stressed that there was no immediate threat to EU food security, “Food availability is currently not at stake in the EU, since the continent is largely self-sufficient for many agricultural products,” the EU executive body said in a press release. However, the Commission said it is “committed to taking all necessary measures to ensure that the EU, as a net food exporter and top agri-food producer, contributes to global food security.”