The Government of Castilla-La Mancha allocates 7.5 million euros to convert cage-based egg production systems to organic, free-range or barn systems
This is the second call for applications to support the conversion from cage-based rearing systems, enabling farms to adapt to growing social demand and European regulations.
Applications can be submitted until 31 July 2024.
The Government of Castilla-La Mancha has launched a aid scheme for the poultry sector worth 7.5 million euros to fund investments aimed at converting cage-based egg production systems to organic, free-range or barn systems.
This is set out in the Official Gazette of Castilla-La Mancha dated 1 July 2024, which published the Order amending the 2023 Order that established the regulatory framework for these grants and the 2023 call for applications, and also launches, through the advance processing procedure, the 2024 call for applications.
Given that the poultry sector is a strategically important agri-food sector for the region, this Autonomous Community has committed to supporting poultry farms in their transition from cage systems to alternative systems such as those mentioned above, for which these grants are once again being made available as a continuation of the 2023 call.
In this way, the regional Government is once again making subsidies available to the poultry sector to fund new investments aimed at progressively phasing out the use of cage systems and responding to social demand, in line with the commitments of the Farm to Fork Strategy and the European Green Deal.
Last year, a first call for applications was launched with an endowment of 20 million euros, which was resolved in January of this year, benefiting a total of 17 farms with grant funding of 11.4 million euros to be used to convert 2.1 million laying places.
As the sector has indicated that further poultry housing still needs to be converted — for which it estimates a new call for applications is required, one that will also help meet the environmental ambitions of the Rural Development Programme — a new call has been launched with a total budget of 7.5 million euros and an application deadline of 31 July 2024.
In this way, the Government of Castilla-La Mancha will have made available to the laying poultry sector nearly 19 million euros to convert cage-based egg production systems to alternatives more in keeping with animal welfare standards.
Specifically, eligible beneficiaries include natural or legal persons and jointly-owned holdings, who are operators of livestock farms located in Castilla-La Mancha that have been registered in the Official Register of Livestock Holdings of Castilla-La Mancha (REGA) prior to 1 January 2023. The maximum grant amount will be 800,000 euros per application, and the maximum grant amount per production unit will be 350,000 euros.