2023 CALL FOR GRANTS FOR INVESTMENTS IN THE PROCESSING, MARKETING, AND DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS AND INVESTMENTS IN FORESTRY TECHNOLOGIES

IMPULSO is pleased to inform you that the Agri-Food Development Service of the Ministry of Rural Affairs and Territorial Cohesion of Asturias has opened the 2023 call for the GRANT Program to provide subsidies for improving the processing, marketing, and/or development systems of agricultural products by promoting local agricultural production, direct sales, and short marketing channels and for investments in forestry technologies, within the territory of the Principality of Asturias.

This call has a budget allocation of €9.3 million.

Below, we summarize the main characteristics of these grants:

BENEFICIARIES

Natural or legal persons who are owners of agri-food or forestry companies carrying out an economic activity based in the Principality of Asturias. In the case of forestry companies, only SMEs.

In groups without legal personality (such as communities of property or civil partnerships), a single representative or attorney-in-fact of the group must be appointed, with sufficient powers to fulfil the obligations that correspond to the group as beneficiary.

PROJECT TYPES

Investment projects aimed at:

• Investments in technologies and procedures aimed at the development of new products, or higher-quality products, and the opening of new markets, especially in the context of short distribution chains.
• Investments in technologies and procedures whose main objective is to include information on the origin of products in their labelling.
• Creation and/or modernisation of local networks for collection, reception, storage, sorting and packaging of production.
• Implementation of quality systems and food safety management.

PROJECT REQUIREMENTS

• Investments must contribute to increasing the added value of agricultural products included in Annex I of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, or the investments must affect the processing and/or marketing of said products, excluding fishery products.
• Projects must aim to improve the overall performance of the company and create employment.
• Expenses may only be subsidized if the actions or investments to which they correspond have not been started or carried out prior to the date the grant is requested (incentive effect).
• The approved or certified investment must be over €6,000 for micro-enterprises, small enterprises, and forestry companies, and €50,000 for medium and large enterprises, except in the case of the implementation of quality systems and food safety management, where no minimum investment will apply.

ELIGIBLE CONCEPTS

• AGRI-FOOD COMPANIES → Tangible or intangible investments aimed at improving the overall performance of the company, and those aimed at processing, marketing, and developing agricultural products:

• Construction, acquisition, or refurbishment of real estate linked to the processing and marketing of agricultural products.
• Purchase of new machinery and equipment.
• Acquisition or development of computer software and/or design and/or programming of websites, provided they are intended for the online marketing of their products, and implementations of quality systems and food safety management.
• General costs with a limit of 12% of the total eligible investment (fees for architects, engineers, consultants, and advisors, costs for advice on economic and environmental viability, patent rights or licenses, packaging and brand designs related to e-commerce).
• Any other investment aimed at compliance with standards that are set to become mandatory in the EU.

• FORESTRY COMPANIES:

• Investments related to the modernization of mechanization for silvicultural tasks and timber forest product harvesting operations (skidders, forwarders, processors, forestry tractors, cranes, cables, chippers, sorters, spider excavators, etc.).
• Investments to improve conditions for storage, drying, and sawmill-specific operations prior to industrial processing (construction or refurbishment of real estate, purchase of new machinery or equipment, general costs (maximum 12%), and any other investment aimed at compliance with standards that are set to become mandatory in the EU).

TYPE AND INTENSITY OF SUPPORT

The total amount of the grant will be a maximum of 40% of the eligible investment, depending on the size of the company and the score obtained by the application.

In the case of investments in forestry technologies, the maximum grant a beneficiary can receive per call will be limited to a maximum of €500,000, and the grant corresponding to investments in the modernization of mechanization for silvicultural tasks and timber forest product harvesting operations cannot exceed €250,000.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE

Deadline open until 2023-02-24, with a budget allocation of €9.3 M.

11/01/2023