In a statement issued yesterday, the Ministry of Rural Development and Food informed affected citrus growers whose crops were damaged by the January 2022 frost about the procedures for receiving advance payments and compensation.
This announcement informs you that the ELGA Board of Directors has decided—and the Ministry’s political leadership has agreed—to distinguish between the Regional Units affected by the frost, and to provide compensation to citrus growers in only one Regional Unit, while γAs for the other regional units of the Peloponnese (Laconia, Elis, and Achaea), the announcement indicates that they have not yet set the compensation amounts to be paid through advance payments!
This announcement constitutes a monument to blatant discrimination against the farmers of Laconia who saw their harvest go to waste. This is not the first time, but it has now become a standard practice of the New Democracy government—especially when it comes to ELGA—to treat farmers as if they were second-class citizens.
However, Farmers in all regional units—and, of course, in Laconia as well—face the same needs, since they have lost their crops and their income. But unfortunately, due to decisions made by the political leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture, Rural Development, and Food, farmers in Laconia—and not only them—are deprived of, and in fact with a clear distinction agricultural compensation, which provides real support for their income—an income that, in addition to frost damage, is also being severely affected by the government’s policies.
