Andrius Palionis: we will promote the establishment of agricultural and food logistics warehouses

New Agriculture Minister Andrius Palionis says one of his ministry's objectives remains to promote short agricultural and food production chains, which have not been developed for almost a decade, by setting up logistics warehouses.

The minister said the conditions for state support for such projects will be further simplified and facilitated.  

„The priorities remain – short chains, we are doing a lot of evaluation, at the end of this summer we were upset that there was a call for applications again and we didn't get a single one, we are evaluating why we didn't get those applications, because we are simplifying the conditions. (...) We are most interested in the creation of logistics warehouses," Palionis told reporters on Tuesday. 

He said that there are plans to simplify the rules in order to attract applications and to take into account farmers and the specificities of their industry, for example, in the case of livestock farming, to propose that farmers should be able to buy mobile slaughterhouses first. Such ideas will be discussed with the social partners. 

A. Palionis said he also wants to focus on vegetable production and other similar industries that are not fully catered for by Lithuanian consumers. 

„We value the sector, it is labour intensive. (...) We want to make it easier for the farms and give them the opportunity to harvest those crops, because we also have challenges with our climatic conditions," said Mr Palionis. 

In addition, the Minister said, the Lithuanian mentality influences the refusal of farmers to cooperate. 

„The Lithuanian mentality has an influence, the same cooperation, it is hardly developing in Lithuania and the good examples of cooperation give that impetus to our farmers when they see that cooperation increases their bargaining power and efficiency. It is difficult to prove to a Lithuanian that cooperating is beneficial to the farm, because there is often a suspicion that if my neighbour doesn't take advantage of me, it will be good for him, but bad for me," explained A. Palionis.