The Regional Secretary for Agriculture and the Environment stated today that the publication of an ordinance authorising the submission of early retirement applications from Wednesday, September 21. This measure allows Azorean farmers aged between 60 and 64 to retire from production "with dignity" and contributes to the "rejuvenation of the agricultural business sector."
 
Asked by reporters on the sidelines of a visit to Queijaria de São Miguel, a cheese dairy plant that has submitted an expansion and modernisation project to PRORURAL+, Luís Neto Viveiros stressed that this measure, approved by the Legislative Assembly, is "exclusively supported by regional funds."
 
The Secretary for Agriculture stressed that this is a path that has been followed in the Azores, a region whose "average age is lower than the entire country" with regard to the agricultural population.
 
Neto Viveiros defended that the rejuvenation of the sector imprints a "new dynamics" to the sector. In addition, this and other regional measures also contribute to the increase in farm size [reparcelling] and, consequently, to greater competitiveness.
 
At a time when the milk sector faces the challenge brought by difficulties in providing an outlet for dairy products as the result of Community and international decision, such as the Russian embargo, the Regional Secretary pointed out that this measure falls within the package of initiatives that has been implemented by the Regional Government since 2015.
 
In this context, he pointed out the programme for the restructuring of the dairy sector, which was joined by nearly seventy regional producers, the creation of lines of credit to support the costs of bank interest on loans taken out for investments in modernisation projects.
 
Queijaria de São Miguel, which was visited today by the Regional Secretary, is focused on the production of cheese from goat and cow milk. It presented an investment project that will boost production capacity, create new jobs as well as to diversify and export its products.