Support policy in Slovak agri-food sector
2001
Solikova, H. (Vyskumny Ustav Ekonomiky Polnohospodarstva a Potravinarstva, Bratislava (Slovak Republic))
In 1991-1999, subsidies in the agri-food sector were largely allocated to support farming in less-favored areas and to promote the agri-food sector restructuring. Subsidies allowed for a partial abatement of the adverse impacts of price disparity, the shortage of environment-friendly soil nutrients, and capital investments. This support, vis-a-vis the agri-food sector needs, proved unsatisfactory and inefficient due to its fragmentariness, frequent changes in the tools and criteria implemented, and a rather poor control of their use. The agri-food sector support from state funds was largely geared towards the stabilization of the commodity market (through the State Fund for Market Regulation), production restructuring by stimulating the selected development programs (State Support Fund for Agriculture and Food Industries), modernization and operation of soil improvement equipment, agricultural land improvement (State Fund for Agricultural Land Conservation and Enhancement). Tax relief in recent years, largely thanks to the excise duty refund on diesel oil, has helped to partly mitigate the impacts of tax encumbrance in agriculture. Enhancing the effectiveness of the agri-food support assumes a differentiated approach to business operators (taking account of their good standing) in support granting, continuous improvement of the support criteria, enhancement of the control of the use of earmarked funds. Also, there is a need to harmonize the individual types of support, so as to avoid their duplicity and prevent them from acting against the production restructuring
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