The senseless subsidy economy has been demonstrated in practice by the sums received from the state by the largest domestic food companies. Profits for most adults who received subsidies rose sharply by hundreds of percent last year, despite rising costs due to expensive energy. At the same time, companies complained last year that cost increases would kill them. In the end, they solved this by massively increasing it, thereby shifting the burden entirely to customers, as we have written about here, for example. As part of subsidy cuts, one of the most generous programs, for example Agrofert or Madeta, which earned tens of millions from dairy companies, is now disappearing.
The Department of Agriculture expects to save ten billion crowns next year, mainly due to lower non-investment subsidies. “A subsidy program to help process agricultural products and increase the competitiveness of the Czech food sector has been cancelled. The cuts are generally about non-national investment subsidies, especially for large companies,” Vojtěch Bílý, spokesman for the Ministry of Agriculture, confirmed to Echo24.
Support for processing of agricultural products in the canceled subsidy scheme, technical modernization, modernization of storage of raw materials and finished food products, or fodder, related hardware and software, acquisition and installation of technology, measurement, control, recording and evaluation devices, construction costs incurred for modernization of production premises. “No other subsidy program within the agricultural national subsidies has similar subsidy items,” added Bílý.
The subsidies are not meant to increase the profits of big companies, so savings in these subsidies are key, the ministry says. “Support to the agriculture sector will mainly go towards investments, which will ensure the growth and modernization of our agriculture,” says Bili.
However, as the National Audit Office (NAO) pointed out some time ago, we have become a subsidy economy, the subsidy business is thriving here, and the government has so far supported even large companies to draw subsidies. The SAO pointed out that although the financial support was primarily designed for small businesses, a total of 1.7 billion kroner has so far benefited mainly large processing companies up to a hundred million kroner.
In the past, several food companies, such as Agrofert Holding, Madeta Milk Company, Kunín Dairy or the Maso Uzeniny Polička meat processing plant, have received support from the program, which will be canceled as part of cuts in agricultural subsidies.
Meat processing plants Maso uzeniny Polička and Kostelecky uzeniny from Agrofert were recently found to be selling fake minced meat. At the same time, in recent years, they have received very generous subsidies precisely from the program to support the processing of agricultural products.
The company Kostelecké Uzeniny received a total of 196,878,813 crowns in national grants from Agrofert holding owned by Andrej Babiš through foundation funds. Just last year It is an amount 19,923,570 crowns. According to iInformation Most of the money from the State Agricultural Intervention Fund (SZIF) came from the program to support the processing of agricultural products. Data on subsidies date back to 2000, when Kostelecke sausages collected almost four and a half million crowns from the state. The company attracted the largest amount in 2021, more than 90 million crowns. A huge chunk of money She came from Support the development of new products, practices and technologies from the project.
Enterprise meat sausage Polička drew The grants totaled 148,290,461 crowns. Last year, there were almost 15 million kroner from the program to support the processing of agricultural products. The company received the most money from the state in 2019, receiving more than 41 and a half million crowns from the support program for the development of new products, procedures and technologies.
In connection with the subsidy business, Madeta, the largest domestic dairy farm owned by businessman Milan Teplý, is often talked about. The According to SZIF In 2021 alone, it received 17 million crowns from the subsidy program to support the processing of agricultural products. Throughout the year, it received 115 million crowns from national grants. In 2022 1 derived from the project9 million. He received more than 10 million for the school milk scheme.
After announcing the cuts, Debley announced he would stop providing milk to schools if farm subsidies were lost. “In our case, it’s support for technology investments, the other side of the matter is school milk, the government program. They’re going to stop the subsidy, so I’m not going to charity, I’m going to load milk into 1,100 schools to lose such terrible money with every delivery. I’ll finish as soon as possible. It’s definitely directed against the big factories. , it goes against Agrofert and against us. So, let’s see how small, small and insignificant dairies will take over for us,” Debley said in May.
Kunin, another important dairy farm, received more than 17 million kroner from the aforementioned program in 2021. Last year, more than 12 million people supported the participation of dairy producers and processors.
As for the Agrofert holding companies, the Vodňanská drubež company received about 25 million crowns in subsidies in 2021, and among others, the dairy company Olma or Mlékárna Hlinsko received the same amount. Vodňanská drubež last year She drew 20 million crowns from the project, Olma almost 22 million. He earned more than 27 million z project Support for the participation of dairy producers and processors. For example, from a project to support the processing of agricultural products at Benam Bakery last year She received aOne and a half million crowns, almost 10 million crowns in 2021.
