European organisations AREFLH, APFeLSO and CSO, together with the Flanders region, last week met with the European Commission to look at the possibility of setting up a mutual fund and to discuss crisis prevention and management issues.
In a press release from AREFLH, the French organisation highlighted the experience of CSO, from the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, whose members set up a producer-financed mutual fund in 2009, providing insurance for growers affected by climate damage and market crises.
The aim of such a fund is reportedly to stabilise producers' incomes by covering a maximum of 70 per cent of losses faced by the grower.
Under the new common market organisation and the first pillar of the common agricultural policy (CAP), AREFLH is pushing for the intervention of the European fund (for 50 per cent) and the producers (for the remaining 50 per cent).
