Portugal’s government has presented a new statute for 'small family farmers' - 93% of those in the agriculture sector are categorised as such.
The Minister of Agriculture, Luís Capoulas Santos, said today that new statute aims at creating, "a more favourable social and fiscal security system."
The new range of measures also aims to help halt rural depopulation, "a living rural world requires people and for people to live in it, they have to have decent conditions," said the minister whose rules will come into effect at the end of the first quarter of 2018 and will "improve the living conditions of this important segment of our agriculture."
The helpful regulations will provide special support for the marketing of local products and offer a degree of positive discrimination when small farmers try and access EU aid.
The complaint that many laws are designed for big farm and act against the operational efficiency of small farms also is addressed, with hygiene and food safety standards becoming more flexible for small dairies and butchers.
