The European Commission (EC) has approved 41 new programmes, including three for pigmeat, to promote agricultural products in EU and third country markets.
A total of 130 million (£93.3m) is being allocated to the three-year programme, half of which comes from the EU budget, plus an extra 30m (£21.5m) of special funding made available by the Commission in response to the Russian ban on imports of EU food products.
“Promoting EU agri-food products on global markets is a strong and proactive response to the Russian Ban,” said EC farm commissioner, Phil Hogan (pictured), adding that the increased promotional funding will “continue to contribute to the success story of the growth in exports of high quality EU agri-food products on the world market”.
The selected programmes, drawn from 18 different Member States, cover a wide variety of product categories from fresh fruit, organic products and olive oil to all forms of meat.
The three selected pig programmes involve one Belgian organisation and two Polish groups, which have attracted a combined EU funding commitment of close to 4.7m (£3.35m).
There are also several general meat-based allocations, including one for Quality Meat Scotland, whose EU funding is worth the equivalent of £860,000.