Polish beekeepers, who are an extremely important part of the country's agriculture and ecosystem, can benefit from state financial support that allows them to develop apiaries and improve the conditions for the production of honey and other bee products. Thanks to the available subsidies, they have the opportunity to improve the efficiency of their work and contribute to environmental protection.
Last call – time for payouts
The last of the recruitments conducted so far from the Strategic Plan of the Common Agricultural Policy for 2023-2027 addressed to beekeepers and beekeeping organizations met with a great response from the industry. The Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture accepted almost 5 thousand applications for support in the amount of over PLN 66 million. The recruitment, which ended at the beginning of the year, concerned seven interventions, and funds could be obtained, among others, for:
• supporting the improvement of the level of beekeeping knowledge;
• investments, supporting the modernization of apiary farms;
• facilitating the management of the itinerant economy;
• scientific and research support;
• supporting the research of the commercial quality of honey and the identification of varietal honeys;
• supporting the fight against varroasis with medicinal products;
• aid for the reconstruction and improvement of the utility value of bees.
All beneficiaries, after implementing the investments planned in the applications, must submit applications for payment in order to recover some of the funds. In the case of most interventions, the deadline for this expired at the end of July, in the case of the last two it will expire on August 14.
All is not lost – subsidies in the fall
However, the first announcements of another recruitment appear in the public space. ARiMR plans recruitment for Interventions in the beekeeping sector between October 24 and November 22. This will be another opportunity to try to develop beekeeping activities.
Subsidies = development?
The next tranche of money that will go to the industry will also allow us to draw the first conclusions as to whether these funds are properly invested and whether they really have an impact on the development of the industry. More and more often, voices are being heard that with the emergence of subsidies, among others for the development of apiaries, the prices of beekeeping accessories and equipment for which subsidy applications can be submitted have significantly increased. Specific products co-financed as part of the intervention can reach surprising and difficult to accept prices. In connection with this, increasingly louder complaints are being heard that some of the funds invested in interventions do not have an impact on the development of the industry at all. This thesis is also supported by statistics, in which it is difficult to record increases that would indicate an increase in the efficiency of Polish bees.
The measure of the effectiveness of spending funds is the classification of the bee as a pollinator – and the measure of the effectiveness of pollination is the yield – that is, the measure of the amount of plant product per unit of area. And the more effective the pollinators are, the higher the yields. And in Poland, unfortunately, they have not increased for 10 years. – explains Przemysław Rujna, Secretary General of the Polish Chamber of Honey.
For the Polish honey industry, it is crucial that the available funding has a real impact on the development of production and increasing the competitiveness of Polish producers on the global market. The next recruitments and the results of the support programs will show quite quickly whether the chosen direction has the expected impact on Polish beekeeping.
