The announcement of the President of ARMA on this matter was published on February 26 this year.
The recruitment criterion is the creation of short supply chains, where a short supply chain is a supply chain that includes a limited number of cooperating business entities, brings local economic development and has close geographic and social links between producers, processors and consumers, on a flat-rate basis under the “Cooperation” measure. The aid will be granted an EIP (European Innovation Partnership) operational group:
1) if this group includes at least 5 farmers and each of the farmers in this group:
- meets the requirements specified in the regulations on the conduct of activity:
– as part of direct deliveries, or
– as part of production of animal products intended for direct sale, or
– as part of agricultural retail trade, or
– as part of a marginal, local and limited activity, or
- pursues business activity to which the provisions of the Act of March 6, 2018 – Entrepreneurs’ Law (Polish Journal of Laws Dz.U. of 2021, item 162) apply with regard to at least one of the types of activity specified in sections 10 and 11 of the Polish Classification of Activity;
2) which has been assigned the identification number referred to in Article 12 of the Act of December 18, 2003 on the National System of Producer Records, Farm Records and Records of Payment Applications (Polish Journal of Laws Dz.U. of 2020, items 1206 and 1440);
3) who has legal capacity, and in the event that it does not have legal capacity, acts on the basis of a written civil partnership agreement or a contract other than a civil partnership agreement, on the basis of which the entities that concluded it intend to jointly carry out the operation and jointly apply for aid, and shall be represented to that effect by one of them.
Operational group entities cannot be members of: another operational group with legal capacity that is applying for aid or which has been granted aid for creating short supply chains on a flat-rate basis or another operational group without legal capacity applying for aid or which has been granted aid for the creation of short supply chains on a flat-rate basis pursuant to § 5b sec. 3 of the Ordinance.Aid is granted in the amount of:
- PLN 325,000, if the operation involves the purchase of a means of transport,
- PLN 280,000, in other cases
– and is granted to a given operational group only once during the implementation of the Rural Development Program 2014-2020.
The costs planned to be incurred as part of the operation of creating short supply chains on a flat-rate basis include, among others, the costs of construction, reconstruction or renovation combined with the modernization of facilities or infrastructure, purchase or installation of new machinery or equipment, including means of transport, purchase or installation of equipment, purchase of services related to the transport of products covered by Annex I to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union in connection with implementation of the operation, paid use of machines, devices, means of transport, equipment and real estate in connection with the implementation of the operation, purchase of production means as well as general and current costs.
The operational group applying for aid for the implementation of an operation in the field of creating short supply chains on the flat-rate basis is required to submit, among others, the operational group’s action plan (as part of Annex 2 to the application for aid entitled “Description of the Planned Operation”), taking into account the baseline state and the planned target state as at the day on which one year lapses as from the date of payment of the second batch, specifying:
- the number of farmers constituting the operational group,
- the number of consumers to whom the operational group will sell products from farmers constituting this group,
- range of products offered for sale,
- sales volume for each product in the range of products offered for sale.
The submitted applications for granting aid will be scored using the criteria for selecting operations specified in § 12 sec. 2a of the Ordinance. The sum of the points obtained will determine the order in which operations are entitled to aid. Operations awarded less than 13 points will not be granted aid.
Within 4 months as from the date of expiry of the deadline for submitting applications for aid, the information on the order in which the aid is to be granted will be published on the website administered by the Agency.
The detailed terms and conditions as well as the procedure for granting aid for operations consisting in the creation of short supply chains on the flat-rate basis under the “Cooperation” measure covered by the Rural Development Program 2014-2020 are specified in the Ordinance of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development of December 23, 2016 on the Detailed Terms and Conditions and Procedure for Granting and Payment Financial Aid under the “Cooperation” Measure Covered by the Rural Development Program for 2014–2020 (Polish Journal of Laws Dz.U. of 2020, items 80 and 2399).
