The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and Forestry announced in Lisbon that the Regional Government will sign a cooperation protocol with IFAP - Financing Institute for Agriculture and Fisheries to assign more powers to the Region, which will speed up and improve services provided to farmers.
 
"The aim of this protocol is to endow the managing authority of agricultural programmes in the Azores - the Regional Directorate for Rural Development - with greater autonomy to resolve pending situations and processes that currently require the intervention of IFAP," said João Ponte.
 
"The installed capacity, the skills acquired and our proximity to farmers and companies are enough reasons to strengthen our powers. They will streamline processes and speed up response times to farmers and companies," said João Ponte. He spoke at the end of a meeting with the President of IFAP, Pedro Raposo Ribeiro.
 
The Secretary for Agriculture pointed out that this protocol arises from the good functional coordination between IFAP and the Regional Directorate for Rural Development (DRDR), the managing authority of PRORURAL+ in the Azores.
 
"With this protocol, I am sure that we will better serve farmers regarding issues related to direct aid payments and the management of the different applications for PRORURAL+ programme," said João Ponte. In this context, he added that "ensuring a proximity service and improving the response time for farmers and companies is of utmost importance to take a faster and more efficient action."
 
As of late October, a total of 13,327 applications were submitted under PRORURAL+, representing an eligible investment of 461 million Euros. Currently, the analysis of only 592 cases is still pending, which corresponds to 4.4% of the support requests registered by the Regional Directorate for Rural Development.