Farmers in Vukovar-Srijem County, who have been protesting since Wednesday on the southern ring-road near Vinkovci have sent a new proposal to Agriculture Minister Petar Cobankovic in order to contribute to efforts to find the best possible solution to their demands, Stjepan Filic, leader of the county farmers' association, said on Sunday.
The protesting farmers demand the 100% payment of grants for this year, of which 60% should be paid in cash and the remaining 40%, which the government has recently abolished, in intermediary products.
The farmers are also demanding the payment of 205 million kuna in unpaid incentives dating from 2008.
Filic said the farmers proposed to collect unpaid incentives for 2008 in the amount of HRK 205 million within a period of one year with a time bill.
The farmers agree that the 60 percent of unpaid incentives from 2009 should be paid in cash until April 1, and that the remaining 40 percent should be paid in intermediary products.
Filic said all associations making up the coordinating body of farmers' associations were agreed on those proposals.
They gave the minister until 1 pm to respond to the proposals and until 4 pm, if he accepted them and visited the protesters.
Otherwise, the farmers will entirely block roads in Slavonia, said Filic.
At 1 pm, the farmers broke with their tractors through a police barricade on a flyover over the southern Vinkovci ring-road, blocking entirely the road.
A growing number of people are joining protesting farmers in Osijek-Baranja County and at 1 pm all roads from Djakovo to Podgorac to Magadenovac, Dalj, Cepin, and Ceminac in Baranja were blocked, the leader of the local farmers' association Brazda, Mato Brlosic, said.
Brlosic said the farmers would not give up on their demand to be paid HRK 205 million in late incentives for 2008.
A compromise solution for other demands is possible, and we have reached such an agreement with Cobankovic in principle, but the HRK 205 million is non-negotiable, Brlosic said.
He added that the farmers had expected Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor to visit them, but they did not receive any information on a possible visit by noon.
More than 5,000 people with some 2,000 tractors are protesting in Slavonian counties, and in Osijek-Baranja County there are close to 2,000 protesters with some 450 tractors, said Brlosic.
The president of the Croatian Chamber of Agriculture and former leader of the Croatian Farmers' Association, Darko Grivicic, supported the farmers' demands, calling on them to be united and on the government to respond to their demands as soon as possible.
Minister Cobankovic said on Saturday evening that the government would not yield to any pressure from farmers because otherwise the state would go bankrupt.
Cobankovic said that funds would be internally redistributed so that incentives to be given in the form of intermediary products would amount to HRK 600 per hectare, instead of HRK 500, however, the ministry would not go beyond the HRK 300 million available for that purpose.
This is an additional 22 percent on the 60 percent of incentives to be paid in cash, he said.
He repeated that next week the government would adopt a decision exempting farmers from paying rent for state-owned farmland for this year (in the amount of HRK 220 million) and deferring, for a year, instalment payment for farmland bought from the state.
Regulations on farmland prices and farmland lease prices will be changed, and decisions will be adopted on support for capital investment, which most banks are willing to accept so that financial problems could be resolved, he said.
As for the rescheduling of loans at the Croatian Reconstruction and Development Bank (HBOR), farmers will deal with it individually, and they will also receive compensation for the storage of last year's wheat yield in the amount of HRK 0.10 per kilogram of wheat, Cobankovic said.
