The President of the Government of the Azores, in conjunction with the Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry, received the Azores Agricultural Federation at an audience held at the Sant’Ana Palace on Monday to analyse the current status of the sector.
For Carlos César, “this is a sector that has registered a high degree of modernisation and mechanisation having significantly increased its production in the areas of animal production and dairy products. The processing sectors as well as the horticultural and fruit sector have also registered a production growth.” This last sector faced some setbacks due to the weather conditions of last winter. The President of the Government stated that “we are assessing this situation to decide which support measure should be implemented.”
The request made by the Azores Agricultural Federation regarding the establishment of a credit line for agricultural marketing. Making statements to journalists after the audience, Carlos César announced that the Government and the Federation will “check each case, each cooperative, each company because the area of marketing support we both cooperatives and companies and we should not discriminate none of them.”
The President of the Government said that “we will assess the impact of this situation, how can we determine the possible establishment of this credit line as we defend this type of solution.” However, Carlos César said that “we will also discuss how we should hold responsible the cooperatives, companies and producers that will benefit from this credit line.”
For Carlos César, “we must seize every opportunity when the issues credit and deficit recovery are addressed so that we may adopt special measures to overcome this situation and promote a more rigorous management.” The President of the Government requires the definition of new obligations on the producers’ relations with marketing as well as with the remaining sector.