Ploughing new furrows
The Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture (ARiMR), in cooperation with Hewlett Packard, has begun work on creating a program to make it possible for farmers to apply for EU funds on the internet. The agency wants to launch the Integrated Administration and Control System (IACS) in 2008.
Currently, ARiMR has to provide each beneficiary of EU agricultural funds with a personalized application form with graphic attachments, in which farmers indicate their production plans for the year.
"Now we want to move that procedure onto the internet. We see great potential here. If farmers could apply over the internet, we would have the data in the system at once," says Dariusz piewak, director of ARiMR's IACS Department.
Currently, it takes about three months to process farmers' application forms, meaning they have to wait up to six months to receive funding. Most farmers are given the funds in May, while the sowing season starts much earlier. The new system would significantly speed up the process, but some changes to the Code of Administrative Conduct are still required.
In the meantime, ARiMR has already surveyed six percent of all beneficiaries about their preferred way of applying for EU funding. Some 90 percent would rather use the traditional method, and only 0.5 percent prefer applying over the internet or on a CD. piewak is certain that the percentage will rise significantly once farmers know that if they apply electronically, they will receive the payments about three months earlier, especially because over 20 percent own a computer and almost 40 percent have access to the internet either at home or in their vicinity.
