Agriculture approves the basis for aid to farms for significant climate damages

The Department of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Food has approved the regulatory bases for aid intended for agricultural holdings that suffer significant damage due to adverse weather conditions. This is done through Order ARP/216/2026, of November 4, signed by the counselor Òscar Ordeig i Molist and published in the Official Gazette of the Generalitat de Catalunya (DOGC) no. 9790 of November 9, 2026, with the reference CVE-DOGC-A-26309041-2026. The regulation comes into force the day after publication, November 10.

The text starts from the observation that Catalan agricultural holdings are exposed, “with increasing intensity and frequency,” to adverse climatic phenomena that can compromise economic viability, the continuity of activity, and the productive balance of rural territories. For this reason, the Department opts for a “stable and flexible regulatory instrument,” conceived as a framework system, that allows for the swift activation of aid lines adapted to the nature of the damage, its intensity, and the territorial scope of each episode.

The bases are framed within the subsidy line PES25-28_ARP0158 of the Strategic Subsidy Plan 2025-2028. The order does not fix any economic allocation: the maximum amount, the budgetary application, and the sources of financing must be determined in each call, as well as the sectors, productions, and the affected territorial area.

30% Threshold and Accreditation of Damage

Calls can only be opened when several objective conditions are simultaneously verified:

• A production loss exceeding 30% of the average production, calculated over the previous three-year or four-year period or over a three-year average based on five or eight-year periods, excluding the highest and lowest values.
• Accreditation of the climatic adversity with official meteorological data or other objective, independent, and verifiable sources.
• Extensive damage with a high level of impact within a municipal, county, or equivalent territorial area.

The damage must be calculated at the holding scale and not plot by plot, to avoid “any artificial fragmentation” that alters the representativeness of the degree of impact. The text accepts sources such as historical yields, final production data, agrometeorological records, geographic information systems, remote sensing, field inspections, and loss data from the agricultural insurance system, and excludes the possibility that data provided by entities with a direct interest in the aid be the sole basis for calculation.

Compensating Losses or Recovering Productive Potential

The grants may have two purposes: to compensate for production losses directly attributable to the climatic episode or to recover the productive potential of the farm, including investment and non-investment actions. In the latter case, the text provides for both investment grants in agricultural holdings and grants to repair damage caused by adverse climatic phenomena assimilable to a natural disaster.

The legal framework is multiple and is specified in each call: Regulation (EU) 2022/2472, on block exemption for the agricultural and forestry sectors; Regulation (EU) 1408/2013, on de minimis aid; and the CAP regulations 2021/2115 and 2021/2116, in addition to temporary or extraordinary measures that European institutions may approve to address severe crises or market disturbances.

Beneficiaries, intensities, and overcompensation control

Beneficiaries may be natural or legal persons who own holdings located within the territorial scope of the call, as well as groups of natural or legal persons without legal personality, who must appoint a single representative and cannot be dissolved until the four-year statute of limitations has expired.

• More favorable treatment in grant intensity or maximum amount for professional farmers, agricultural holdings qualified as priority, and young farmers.
• Minimum productive size required for each holding, expressed in hectares of utilized agricultural area or in livestock units depending on the sector.
• Prohibition of overcompensation: the total amount received cannot exceed the value of the damage actually suffered nor can it cover what is compensable by the agricultural insurance system.
• Obligation to declare contracted insurance, reported claims, and compensations received or requested.

Applications shall be submitted electronically, through Tràmits Gencat or the Canal empresa, within the deadline set by each call; requests for documentation amendments shall be resolved within ten business days. Notifications shall be made by publication on the Electronic Notice Board of the Generalitat de Catalunya, which replaces individual notification and has the same effects.

With this order, the Catalan primary sector has for the first time a permanent and adaptable framework to respond to severe climatic episodes without having to create a new regulation each time, but the actual aid will depend on the calls activated by the Department and the budget allocation assigned to them, a point that the text leaves open.

Source: Official Gazette of the Generalitat de Catalunya, no. 9790, November 9, 2026, section I (General Provisions), pp. 1-22 (official reference: CVE-DOGC-A-26309041-2026).