The National Association of Agricultural Cooperatives reported in subsidies in organic beekeeping in a letter to the Ministry of Rural Development and Food and OPECEPE.

As is typically emphasized, the distortion of organic beekeeping exceeds the application for aid for grazing without animals.

The document highlights serious problems of irregularities and unfair competition in organic farming, livestock and beekeeping programs, and emphasizes the need to adopt substantial measures, such as the co -responsibility of providers and certificates, in order to protect producers who work with consistent management.

ETHEAS notes that it is not evaluated with substantial and mainly productive criteria, which “demonstrates that those responsible for shaping the terms of such notices have diverged from the main objective of productive agricultural activity”. At the same time it calls for “the complete reform of the framework”.

If the complaints are confirmed, it will be another subsidy scandal after the “monkey” pastures.

The letter of ETHEA:

“During our meeting with the leadership of the Ministry of Rural Development and Food on 5.6.2025, we were informed for the first time on the serious issues of exaggerations and irregularities, which unfortunately returned to this call for organic farming-livestock and beekeeping.

ETHEAS, by its document No. 35/25.2.2025, had pointed out an aspect of the unacceptable situation that followed. A typical example of this unjustified situation, which only affects the productive organic farmers and the future of the aid they need to receive to produce, is the case of organic beekeeping.

The responsibility for the convenience of circumventing the conditions for accession mainly relates to the procedures and criteria that must be met when submitting applications for accession, and also concerns a number of certification services and providers, which contribute to altering the actual status of producers. As a result of the lack of net insurance valves, it favors circumvention and unfair competition, both between producers and between service providers and certificates. Ultimately, this situation seriously damages the future of aid in the country.

Based on what they have seen so far, as official data has not been given, the distortion of organic beekeeping is also exceeding the aid application for grazing without animals.

The formal treatment of integration applications, instead of evaluating with substantial and mainly productive criteria, demonstrates that those responsible for shaping the terms of such notices have diverged from the main objective of productive agricultural activity, which should be the main guidelines.

Therefore, the detour or even the ignorance of the main criterion of agricultural production – and in organic farming, livestock and beekeeping – to evaluate the actual agricultural activity of a beneficiary enables:

In the creation of widespread supporting documents for submitting an integration request
In unjustified and counterproductive in every respect, transfer of resources and critical aid to farmers to third parties
On the basis of the above, we believe that immediate measures must be taken for ongoing integration in order to protect the aid for organic farmers who will eventually join the program. This will be avoided shortly again as unjustly paid amounts by the bio -cultivators themselves, while the various providers will have already received their remuneration safely. The measures we consider immediately necessary are three:

Complete publication of applications by action, regional unit and listing the data of the previous three years before 2024-25. Comparison of applications with the budget available.

Complete disclosure of the details of the providers and providers of certificates to prospective applicants for beneficiaries.

For any application that will eventually be approved for accession, to invite the Office or Certificate to be committed to commit to responsible statements prior to joining that production and procedures are accurate. Applications that will be deemed to contain irregularities, providers to be called upon to return the pay to the farmers, to suffer the criminal consequences of the false declaration and to lift their licensing.

As ETHEAS, trying to protect our cooperatives and producers, from irregular procedures proposed by various more and more extensively, we call for the complete reform of the framework and that providers have co -responsibility with the producer according to the accountants who sign accountants. Believing that the fact that today responsibility for irregular procedures is solely burdened by the applicant producer favors the appearance of unacceptable phenomena, such as that of organic beekeeping, we believe that this status must change.

For this reason, ETHEAS calls for co -responsibility with no exception for any provider, including cooperatives, in order to have a substantial restriction of abuses in paying aid for farmers.

We thank in advance, awaiting the disclosure of the data and the adoption of our other proposals, we are always at your disposal for any clarification and information necessary. “