eAgrar platform as the key for agriculture development

The development of eAgrar platform will ease the registration for around 400,000 active households and the process of submitting applications for the national incentives to farmers, and this is why this platform will be one of the main priorities of NALED's Food and Agriculture Alliance in the following two years.

The first results in the development of eAgrar are expected already next year, said the Minister of Agriculture Branislav Nedimović at the ceremonial session of this working body. 

- We were approved a World Bank project involving eAgrar, and as soon as the new Government is formed we will start with implementation This means that all databases will be linked up, and along with easier registration and application for subsidies, this will also introuduce better control of compliance with the veterinary, phytosanitary and enviornment standards. We expect that starting from 1 January 2022 everyone will be able to register electronically – said Minister Nedimović.

The Alliance's list of priorities includes work on amending regulations to ease the donation of food that loses quality after "best before" date, but is not necessarily expired.

- A third of globally produced food gets thrown away, and it is estimated that 10% cases are caused by wrong interpretation of labels. Groceries with the indication „best before“ start losing their quality after the indicated date, but they are not necessarily bad like the ones with the indication „expiration date“ such as meat, fish and milk. Hence one of the Alliance priorities is the legal regulation of donations of such products, to enable that around 250,000 tons of food which is annually thrown, could be used for nutrition - said Andrej Beslać, Director of Mlekoprodukt and the newly elected President of NALED's Food and Agriculture Alliance.

One of the Alliance's greatest result was the reform of seasonal workers engagement in agriculture and the introduction of electronic registration, which led to 50% seasonal workers being introduced into the legal flows, with 400 million dinars in taxes and contributions being paid for their engagement, while the costs for employers have been reduced by 30%.

The session announced that the new Government should also resolve the process of harmonizing national regulations in the field of food safety and quality with the EU acquis, to facilitate trade with the European Union. Import and export of goods would be more efficient if Serbia would acknowledge the results from EU laboratories, and if the regulations in the field of food labeling in terms of country of origin would be consistently applied, which is now an additional expense for the importers and it slows down the placement of goods.

Food and Agriculture Alliance was established in 2017 and it advocates the establishing of a stable, predictable and sustainable business environment for companies from the food and agriculture sector. It currently brings together 46 members - businesses, local governments and civil society organizations. 

New leadership of the Food and Agiculture Alliance

Members of the Food and Agriculture Alliance have appointed the new presidency, and in the following two years the Alliance will be led by Andrej Beslać, CEO of Mlekoprodukt, while the Vice Presidents will be Andrea Radonjić, Public and Regulatory Affairs Manager in Coca-Cola HBC, Tamara Penjić, Executive Director of Meat Industry in Carnex and Ljiljana Radosavljević, Public Affairs Manager, Government Affairs and Corporate Communications Manager in Pepsico.


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