Croatian Agriculture Minister Visits Burned Properties in Dalmatia

Summary

Croatian Agriculture Minister Marija Vučković vis­ited areas dev­as­tated by wild­fires in the hin­ter­land between Šibenik and Vodice, promis­ing com­pen­sa­tion for farm­ers who lost olive trees and other crops. The fires burned over 330 hectares, includ­ing farm­land and bee colonies, and the gov­ern­ment is work­ing to assess the dam­ages and pro­vide sup­port to affected farm­ers through the rural devel­op­ment pro­gram.

“It is very dif­fi­cult to look at the large areas that have per­ished in the fire, and in which a lot of effort has been invested,” said Croatian Agriculture Minister Marija Vučković as she vis­ited burned areas in the hin­ter­land between the Dalmatian cities of Šibenik and Vodice.

Accompanied by local offi­cials, the min­is­ter first vis­ited the fam­ily farm of Ivan Cvitana, where 400 olive trees burned in a wild­fire.

“Damage will be com­pen­sated,” she said. ​“For exam­ple, some­one who has 300 olive trees burned will receive the same num­ber of new seedlings. From the rural devel­op­ment pro­gram, he can get funds for rais­ing new plan­ta­tions as well as com­pen­sa­tion for lost income.”

The fire rav­aged more than 330 hectares, includ­ing 137 farms and 413 parcels reg­is­tered in Arkod – the land par­cel reg­is­tra­tion sys­tem in Croatia.

According to the first esti­mates, about 95 hectares of agri­cul­tural land were burned, pri­mar­ily olive groves, vine­yards and fig and almond plan­ta­tions. There were also reports of dam­age to sev­eral bee colonies.

The dam­ages are still being added up, and when they are final, the pro­ce­dure for declar­ing a nat­ural dis­as­ter begins, which usu­ally lasts about two months. A nat­ural dis­as­ter is declared by the local com­mu­nity, in this case the Šibenik-Knin County. ​“Once that is done, every­thing will go on,” Vučković said.

Funds from the rural devel­op­ment pro­gram, which are allo­cated after nat­ural dis­as­ters, will be avail­able to farm­ers affected by the fire who apply for the ten­der.

Advisors to the min­istry vis­ited the affected agri­cul­tural hold­ings imme­di­ately after the fire and will con­tinue to be present in the field and at the farm­ers’ dis­posal through­out the process.

Although these pro­ce­dures have been sim­pli­fied in recent years, each farmer can get his own adviser to fill out the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion, Vučković said.

She also con­firmed that the gov­ern­ment, in coop­er­a­tion with the Šibenik-Knin County, will con­sider the pos­si­bil­ity of addi­tional assis­tance to farm­ers in com­pen­sat­ing part of the lost income, in order to restore agri­cul­tural pro­duc­tion as soon as pos­si­ble.

According to data from the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), 135 wild­fires have burned 30,889 hectares in Croatia since the start of the year.

Many of the fires are burn­ing in Istria and Dalmatia, the country’s two most promi­nent olive-grow­ing regions.

Between 2008 and 2021, wild­fires burned an aver­age of 13,600 hectares each year in Croatia. The peak wild­fire sea­son begins in late July and early August.