The state must support the primary sector of the economy and contribute to solving the economic problems that farmers face today, EDEK President Marinos Sizopoulos said on Saturday.
In a speech at the 3rd Pancyprian Congress of the New Peasant Movement held in Choirokoitia, the EPP President said that "our country, apart from the semi-occupation it has been facing with the asymmetrical threats of Turkey since 1974, after 2012 it had to face serious social and economic problems due to the economic crisis that hit Cyprus, due to the coronavirus pandemic and recently the Ukrainian crisis. The agricultural and livestock farming world has been the one that has suffered the greatest consequences of these crises."
The EPP, he continued, "considers that there are two serious issues that the state must intervene and provide immediate and priority solutions. One is how to create the conditions for further development of the agricultural world so that we can obtain a sufficiency of consumer products and limit the dependencies we currently have on third countries."
Unfortunately, said Mr. Sizopoulos "we have reached this point because of wrong policies where, instead of supporting producers, we supported traders, so instead of having our own products and making a profit for producers, some people preferred traders to make a profit by importing cheap products from abroad".
This is precisely why, he said, "the primary sector of the economy should definitely be supported with new innovative ideas, where we can develop specific products according to the morphology of the soil and according to the climatic conditions. What is needed today is a serious study so that we can exploit each region individually and we can have a development of the primary sector of the economy."
The second and important element, Sizopoulos said, "is that the state should contribute to solving the economic problems that farmers face today, which can be solved in many ways. We have already submitted a number of such proposals to Parliament, some of which have been implemented but some are still pending."
He also noted that some of the objectives that everyone should push to achieve are "the reduction of the cost of electricity, issues related to the protection of production of products, issues related to the housing that farmers and rural residents should acquire and incentives that should be given for urban residents to return to the countryside."
He also noted that some of the objectives that everyone should push to achieve are "the reduction of the cost of electricity, issues related to the protection of the production of products, issues related to the housing that farmers and rural residents should acquire and incentives that should be given for urban residents to return to the countryside."[/P WHAT IS ALSO NEEDED IS TO HAVE A PRUDENT AND REASONABLE SUBSIDY SO THAT THERE CAN BE A RATIONAL DEVELOPMENT."
Marinos Sizopoulos also said that "just as the Farmers' Organizations have built an excellent cooperation among themselves, the rest of the political forces should do the same, leave our differences aside and work together."
Marinos Sizopoulos also said that "just as the Farmers' Organizations have built an excellent cooperation among themselves, the rest of the political forces should do the same, leave our differences aside and work together. It is a fact that there will be agreements and disagreements, but our disagreements should not lead to such conflicts that they do not then allow for cooperation on other issues."
We are, concluded the EPP President, "a small nation and what can give us the perspective for the future is our unity and cooperation on a constructive level."
Source: CNA
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