Seed Subsidy of 17,000 Dinars Per Hectare Awaits a Call

The subsidy for certified seed, worth 17,000 dinars per hectare, has not been paid, and no public call for it had been issued as of November 2, even though N1 reports that the deadline on the calendar expired at the end of October. Farmers’ associations are demanding immediate payment, while the caretaker agriculture minister, Dragan Glamocic, asks whether the ministry has the political legitimacy to keep issuing calls.

The incentive covers certified seed for up to 100 hectares per farm. That means a ceiling of 1.7 million dinars per farm (about 14,500 euros at roughly 117 dinars to the euro). According to Danas, the arrangement dates from November 2023 and was agreed with then Prime Minister Ana Brnabic.

When was the subsidy supposed to be paid?

The sources disagree on the exact deadline. N1 says payment was due by the end of October under the current calendar and that the deadline for the public call expired on October 31. Dragan Kleut, president of the Alliance of Farmers’ Associations of Banat, told AgroSmart, in a piece published on October 31, that the payment deadline runs out on November 1. None of the articles we reviewed confirms that the call has been issued.

Glamocic had previously claimed that the calendar would be respected and that the seed subsidy would be paid between September and October. Farmer Goran Filipovic from Kisac says the minister made that promise back in the spring:

“Glamocic said in the spring that seed subsidies would be paid before the autumn sowing. The optimal window for sowing wheat ends in about ten days, the ground is hard because only ten liters of rain fell per square meter, and it is impossible to work it,” Filipovic said in a Danas piece published before the October 25 election.

What did the minister say on November 2?

According to an N1 report from November 2, Glamocic said the ministry is ready to continue issuing public calls for investment measures in agriculture. The seed subsidy is not named specifically in that report. “We made a plan and respected the calendar, but now the question is whether we have the political legitimacy,” Glamocic told Agro TV on the show “Dobra zemlja”.

The minister added that he had read that the Initiative for the Survival of Serbian Farmers is calling for a halt to national tenders for investment measures, so he expects the associations to state their position. “My appeal to them is to agree among themselves whether they want us to keep working and distributing as before, issuing public calls, or to stop,” he said. Glamocic also said the measures have been planned and budgeted.

He spoke openly about the change of government:

“It is better for everyone if the handover of power happens as soon as possible so that things can be run, because we no longer have political legitimacy. The people have decided to give the majority to someone else,” Glamocic said.

According to the same report, the minister had earlier announced the following:

• the decision on the second installment of incentives for crop production is left to the next government, and the amounts will not be the same for all farmers
• payments already begun will continue
• agricultural loans stay on the current terms: 1% interest for women and those under 40, 3% for everyone else, and loans for artificial fertilizer carry no interest

What do the farmers’ associations say?

Reactions came the same day. The Initiative for the Survival of Farmers wants payments halted and abuses investigated, while Glamocic proposes that the associations first agree among themselves. Jovica Jaksic, president of the Independent Association of Farmers of Serbia, told N1 that this cannot be an excuse: “The subsidies should be paid because we have no money even for fuel, and wheat sowing is going with difficulty.” Abuses should be investigated after the payout, he added, because they support that too. On the proposal that the associations reach an agreement, he said: “How are they supposed to agree when there are so many associations, because every minister who came to power created his own associations and provoked clashes among them.”

Marko Gabric, chairman of the Management Board of the Subotica Farmers’ Association, noted that Glamocic is still in a caretaker mandate and that, by the calendar, the subsidy should have been paid by the end of October. “It looks like they spent that money on the election campaign and now have nothing to pay it with,” Gabric said. That is his own assessment, and in the sources we reviewed the ministry has not responded to it.

Nedeljko Savic, president of the “Stig” Farmers’ Association, says the minister promised before the election that the payment calendar would be respected. “As long as Glamocic sits in that seat, he has to do his job and not take revenge on farmers like this,” Savic said.

Peda Veljkovic of the Farmers’ Association of Sumadija and Pomoravlje demanded that the call be issued without delay:

“That the budget is empty is not the Student List’s problem. Everything Glamocic says is a fraud. We demand that he immediately issue a public call for the payment of subsidies,” Veljkovic told N1.

Zlatko Kokanovic, president of the Association for the Rescue and Survival of Livestock Farmers of Western Serbia, says that neither the insurance subsidies nor the milk premium have been paid, though in his words they should already have been. “He is now shifting responsibility to others because, probably, there is no money in the budget,” Kokanovic said.

How much wheat has been sown?

The sources contain no official figure on sown areas, and the associations’ estimates differ. Kleut claims that not even 50% of the planned wheat area has been sown, that the optimal sowing window closed a few days ago, and that the delay could reduce yields because the wheat will not have time to take root before frost. In the Danas piece published before the election, grain growers said that “maybe only a few percent” of the planned areas had been sown. Jaksic said then that growers around Bavaniste in southern Banat had not sown even 5% of their planned areas.

Kleut says farmers have not yet settled their debts for inputs taken for last year’s sowing and now have to borrow again. “There is a drought, crop prices are low, farmers have no money for sowing, and caretaker minister Dragan Glamocic has not even published the public call, which has endangered the country’s food security and farmers’ livelihoods,” Kleut told AgroSmart. Jaksic added for N1: “Never as in the last two or three years has it happened that farmers cannot pay their loan installments.”

From the area around Kraljevo, as Danas reported, Predrag Veljkovic says the land there is heavier than in Vojvodina and cannot be worked even with heavy machinery. “Sowing is waiting, the ground is like concrete, people have no money, and according to unofficial information there is none in the Agriculture Ministry’s budget either for paying subsidies for heifers and seed,” Veljkovic said. Farmer Vukasin Ristic from the Pancevo area works 250 hectares and should sow wheat on a third of it. He has not started yet, because only about ten liters of rain per square meter have fallen, and he says it would take 100 to 200.

Filipovic also did the budget math for Danas. If it is true that Glamocic said 85% of budget subsidies have been paid, he said, he does not believe the remaining 15% holds money for seed: “I do not believe there is money for the seed subsidy in the remaining 15 percent. I do not know where that money is if they say the budget is the same as last year, when seed subsidies were paid, where is that money in this year’s budget.” He also claims that the agreement on a fuel excise refund of 50 dinars per liter was broken, because for a time 39 dinars was paid. That is Filipovic’s claim, not an established fact.