ACCEPTED STRATEGY OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT FBIH 2021-2027.

The strategy is a basic medium-term strategic-development document that determines the goals and priorities of the development of agriculture and rural areas in the FBiH in a period aligned with the duration of the current Common Agricultural Policy of the European Union (EU) until 2027, as well as the way to achieve them, the financial and institutional framework for implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting, the FBiH Government Office for Public Relations announced.

The strategy envisages the creation of a safer and more predictable environment for agricultural producers, purchase organizers and processors, in which they can clearly see which measures will be implemented and in what way, and as they say, this should facilitate production, sales and investment planning, and ultimately result in healthy and sustainable development of the agricultural sector as a whole.

This document emphasizes raising the quality of agricultural and food products, and reducing negative impacts on the environment. The development of the business of agricultural cooperatives and the organization of farmers within cooperative organizations are also listed as priorities.

Also, direct payments are simplified and transformed into a single system of payments per hectare and head. This leaves room for cantonal ministries to additionally support their specific productions from their budgets, and for all producers in the territory of the Federation to have the most uniform conditions for production with regard to the level of support.

In the explanation, it was stated that, in accordance with the regulations, the relevant federal ministry obtained the opinion of the Federal Institute for Development Programming on the verification of the compliance of the text of this strategy with the Development Strategy of the Federation of BiH 2021-2027.

It was established that there is mutual compatibility between these two development documents, that is, that in the process of preparing this strategy, development directions and priorities at the FBiH level were taken into account, including the Framework for the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goals in BiH.

Also, the implementation of an independent prior (ex-ante) evaluation of the draft strategy was ensured with the aim of determining the quality, relevance and coherence of the strategic document, as well as the possibility of implementing strategic documents and ensuring their compliance with the legal framework in FBiH.

The strategy seeks to adopt new solutions from the relevant EU regulations, which means that new or different agricultural policy measures appear, for which it is necessary to create preconditions for their implementation.

It was also stated that with the adoption of the strategy, it will be necessary to pass new laws on agriculture and financial incentives in this area.

By the way, eight working groups, in which professors from agricultural faculties and institutes were engaged, worked on the development of the strategy. According to the previously defined topics (fruit growing and viticulture, crop and vegetable growing, animal production, food industry, natural resources, business environment, rural development and fishing), these working groups drafted a text in accordance with the project task and the templates defined as the basis of the work. central strategy development team.

During the development phase of this strategy, all necessary prescribed consultations with the interested public were carried out.

The strategy implies an increase in the allocation of budget funds for agriculture, so it is planned that the budget for these purposes will be increased every year, and in the next year the budget allocation of 128 million marks is planned, while in 2024 it is planned to be the amount of 143 million marks.