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 rearing systems, enabling holdings to adapt to growing social demand and European regulations.
Applications may be submitted until 31 July 2024.
The Government of Castilla-La Mancha has launched the 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 has published the Order amending the 2023 Order that established the regulatory basis for these grants and the 2023 call for applications, and which also opens, 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 Community has committed to supporting poultry holdings in facilitating their transition from cage systems to alternative systems such as those mentioned above. To this end, these grants are once again being called, continuing from 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, thereby responding to social demand and 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 20 million euros, which was resolved in January of this year, benefiting a total of 17 holdings with a grant amount of 11.4 million euros, which will be used to adapt 2.1 million places.
As the sector has indicated that further poultry housing still needs to be adapted, and has estimated that 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 close to 19 million euros, which will be used 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 that are owners of livestock holdings located in Castilla-La Mancha and registered before 1 January 2023 in the Official Register of Livestock Holdings of Castilla-La Mancha (REGA). The maximum grant amount will be 800,000 euros per application, and the maximum grant amount per production unit will be 350,000 euros.