Cantabria will compensate up to 100% of crop uprooting due to pests

The Official Gazette of Cantabria publishes this Friday, October 23, in issue number 204, Order DES/20/2026, of October 19, which regulates the procedure for granting compensation derived from phytosanitary measures adopted for the eradication and control of plant pests not yet established in national territory. The regulation, signed by Councilor María Jesús Susinos Tarrero, establishes the scale by which producers whose crops are uprooted, destroyed, or immobilized by administrative order will be compensated. It enters into force the day after its publication, that is, October 24, 2026.

The legal mandate requiring compensation

The order is based on Law 43/2002, of November 20, on Plant Health, whose article 21 requires compensation for affected parties when the fight against a pest involves the destruction, deterioration, or rendering useless of private or public assets or properties. Added to this basis are Royal Decree 739/2021, of August 24, and Regulation (EU) 2016/2031, which require the regional authority to immediately adopt eradication measures upon the confirmed presence of a quarantine pest.

The text recalls that, if those affected do not execute the ordered measures, the Administration may execute them subsidiarily, at the expense and risk of the interested party, in accordance with article 102 of Law 39/2015 and articles 19 and 64 of Law 43/2002, without prejudice to any corresponding sanctions. The new regulation replaces Order DES/34/2008, of May 16, which is expressly repealed.

Who can collect and for what concepts

Professional plant operators and holders of holdings with SME status who possess plants, plant products, or plantations located in Cantabria may request compensation, provided they are affected by resolutions from the General Directorate of Rural Development. Two scenarios are contemplated: the declaration of contamination by the harmful organisms included in annexes II and III of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/2072, or the declaration of non-contamination of plants previously immobilized due to suspicion, when such immobilization has caused verifiable damage.

Compensation for quarantine pests or diseases declared in forest masses is excluded, as these will have their own regulation. To collect, it will be necessary to have executed all actions indicated in the resolutions of the General Directorate and to be registered in the corresponding official registries.

The scale: from 100% to 50%

The order details the percentages applicable to each compensable concept:

• 100% of the justified expenses for the uprooting, transport, and destruction of plant material, as well as loading, unloading, and landfill, provided there are invoices.
• 80% of the losses due to the destruction of plantations or affected plant material.
• 50% of the damages caused by the duration of the ordered immobilizations, limited to the value of the immobilized material.
• 100% of the expenses for the disinfection of plants, warehouses, nurseries, tools, and machinery when declared mandatory.

From the maximum amount, quantities received through insurance schemes and costs that were not incurred due to the pest will be deducted. The valuation will be carried out by technicians from the General Directorate of Rural Development, taking into account the nature of the crop, the age of the plantation, the density, the vegetative vigor, the variety, and the plot’s infrastructure, using the prices from the Cantabria contracting market or, failing that, from the nearest market of neighboring communities or the local market.

Deadlines, procedures, and administrative silence

Applications shall be submitted using the annex model of the order itself, addressed to the head of the Department of Rural Development, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food, at the Department’s registry, in regional offices, or in the General Electronic Registry of the Government of Cantabria. They must be accompanied by a third-party form, justifying invoices, a responsible declaration of SME status, and a declaration of contracted insurance premiums or the lack thereof.

The right to claim expires one year after the event occurred. The period for resolution and notification is six months, after which the application is understood to be rejected. Against the resolution, which exhausts the administrative route, an optional appeal for reversal may be filed within one month, or a direct challenge may be brought before the contentious-administrative jurisdiction. Funding will be charged to the budgetary availabilities of the General Budgets of Cantabria.

The regulation arrives with a tight schedule: eradication measures cannot be delayed, and their cost falls on holdings that, in many cases, are small family businesses. The new scale provides certainty for the first time regarding how much is recovered in each case and transfers up to 20% of the loss of plant material to the producer, a margin that Cantabrian nursery owners must take into account when contracting insurance for their crops.

Source: Official Gazette of Cantabria, no. 204, October 23, 2026, section 6. Subsidies and grants, pp. 54828-54834 (official reference: CVE-2026-8256).