Floriculture and medicinal plants: which AFIR interventions are published today — and why the DR-18 code is not among them

Three checks, all on the agency's own site. First: the details-and-annexes address for DR-18 returns a 404, unlike those for DR 15, DR 16, DR 19, DR 20, DR 22, DR 23, DR 26, DR 30 and DR 33, which open normally. Second: the agriculture funding pages — farm holdings, agricultural processing, fruit growing, producer groups — each enumerate the interventions in their scope, and no DR-18 appears among them. Third: the submission-sessions page showed, on the day of the check, a single launch announcement, the one for the Energy scheme.

What that means and what it does not. It means a DR-18 code cannot be used today as a planning reference: it has no published guide, no annexes and no session. It does not mean the intervention was cancelled or that it cannot appear in a later version of the Strategic Plan — the absence of a page is not a decision. The correct wording for an investment memo is the one above, not either of the two certainties.

Why it matters in this sector: floriculture, medicinal and aromatic plants appear often in programme lists recompiled year after year, where codes migrate from one document version to the next without being reconfirmed at source. The rule we apply, and recommend: an intervention code is read from the AFIR page of that intervention, not from a list.

DR 16, investments in vegetables and potatoes: public support of at most EUR 3 million per project for associative forms in the vegetable sector, and EUR 2,000,000 per project otherwise, except projects that merely purchase machinery, capped at EUR 300,000 per project for crops other than potatoes and at EUR 700,000 where the machinery is bought by associative forms. The intensity of non-reimbursable public support does not exceed 65% of eligible costs.

DR 20, livestock: at most EUR 2 million per project, or EUR 300,000 for projects proposing only the purchase of agricultural machinery and equipment, again at an intensity of at most 65%. DR 30, young farmer setup: EUR 70,000 as a lump sum in two instalments — 75% on signing the financing contract and 25% subject to correct implementation of the business plan — for holdings between EUR 12,000 and EUR 100,000 SO, between 8,000 and 100,000 SO in mountain areas, and between 2,300 and 100,000 SO for vegetables in protected spaces.

None of these interventions carries floriculture or medicinal plants in its title, and DR 30 and sub-measure sM 4.1 (simple purchases of agricultural machinery) name no sector at all. Whether a flower or aromatic-plant holding fits one of them is decided in that intervention's applicant guide and its eligible-activity annex, not on this page. We do not issue that verdict.

Direct selling changes the economics of a floriculture holding, because the margin stays with the grower. The online store we build handles the specifics of perishable goods: a catalogue tied to seasonal availability, short delivery windows, a separate price list for florists and processors, recurring orders for trade customers. A telephone order from the partner florist and an online order land in the same ledger, so stock is deducted once.

For medicinal and aromatic plants, batch traceability is a negotiating argument: the processor or exporter asks for the plot, the harvest date, the drying and packing conditions. The system builds the batch record from data entered along the flow, not from a register filled in at month end.

In the dossier these systems appear as a technical offer broken down by functionality and as a budget by eligible cost category. One detail that counts at evaluation: AFIR publishes a reference-prices section among its working instruments, and a budget line departing from them needs justification. At implementation, the payment claim rests on the acceptance reports we hand over at delivery.

We deliver software and the technical documents describing it: specifications, offer, budget, supply contract, acceptance reports. We do not write the funding application, we do not produce the feasibility study, we do not calculate scores and we do not promise selection — those belong to the agricultural consultant and to AFIR's evaluation.

The limit that costs us something, stated before signing: we do not put into a budget a system whose classification as an eligible cost is not supported by the intervention guide, even though it would enlarge the project and our own contract. A module rejected at verification moves the whole cost onto the farm and spoils the acceptance report. We prefer a smaller budget that can actually be reimbursed.