A total of 2,315 religious institutions in Romania that own or manage  over 23,000 hectares of farmland, for which they received last year subsidies of nearly EUR 5 million, will have to prove that they are “active farmers” to further receive money, reports local news agency Mediafax.

In 2013, over 2,300 religious institutions, including 217 monasteries and more than 2,000 parishes and other institutions, have submitted applications to the Agency for Payments and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA) for a total agricultural area of over 23,800 hectares.

For this area, APIA authorized total payments of some EUR 4.9 million.

“We wish to draw attention to this category of farmers that starting with 2015 it will be necessary to prove the quality of active farmers to get area payments under the Regulation (EU) in 2013,” Dorel Benu, general manager of APIA, told Mediafax.

The Romanian agriculture minister Daniel Constantin recently said that the ministry will draw this year a “black list” that will include inactive farmers and institutions that owned land and received subsidies, so that they will no longer benefit from area payments, according to Mediafax.

The list is to be completed this year, when the concept of “active farmer” will also be defined.

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com