Confagri (National Confederation of Agricultural Cooperatives and Agricultural Credit of Portugal) delivered to the Government a manifesto with three priorities for the agricultural sector, warning that Portugal is competing with Spain under "structurally more unfavorable" conditions. The difference in agricultural diesel subsidies, which stands at around 20 cents per liter, is the most concrete example pointed out by the organization, which advocates the need to harmonize competitiveness conditions in energy and fuel costs.
The confederation emphasizes that the situation is particularly penalizing because Spain is simultaneously one of the main trading partners and a direct competitor of national production in various markets. In the manifesto, the organization argues that "it is not sustainable to demand that national agriculture compete in the same market when essential production factor costs are significantly different from the outset". The Minister of Agriculture stated that an extraordinary support of 30 million euros for energy and fertilizers has already been fully paid, and that new fertilizer support may increase that amount to 60 million euros.
The other two identified priorities are the reinforcement of funding for investment in agriculture, forestry, and the bioeconomy, and the reduction of context costs through administrative simplification. Confagri also expresses concern about the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, considering that the proposal under discussion for the next European financial framework is "too penalizing for national agriculture", with a reduction of approximately 17% in funding allocation.
The organization argues that administrative simplification is essential to halt investment and facilitate generational renewal in a sector with an aging agricultural population. The document was presented during AgroSemana in Póvoa de Varzim, at a session that brought together different links in the agri-food chain. Confagri concludes that "producing in Portugal is creating wealth, preserving territory, generating employment, reducing dependencies, and reinforcing the country's response capacity in the face of future crises".
