Agriculture Minister Brands €20 Million Farm Package Insufficient at Santarém Fair — José Manuel Fernandes Demands Coordinated EU Response

Agriculture Minister José Manuel Fernandes broke publicly with his own cabinet on Saturday, telling reporters at the 62nd Feira Nacional da Agricultura (National Agriculture Fair) in Santarém that the €20 million emergency package signed off by the Council of Ministers last week is "not enough" to cushion Portuguese farmers from rising fertiliser and energy bills.

The minister's words

"Não considero que seja suficiente" — "I don't consider it sufficient" — Fernandes told journalists on the Foral pavilion, before adding that any durable answer to the cost squeeze "has to be European". He warned that if every member state lines up its own subsidy line, the result will be "unfair competition inside the single market" and a deepening divergence between northern and southern European producers. The minister will carry the point to the next informal AGRIFISH (Council of Agriculture and Fisheries) meeting later this month.

What the €20 million buys

Under the package that Diário da República (Official Gazette) is expected to publish next week, Portuguese farmers will receive €28 per hectare on irrigated land and €12 per hectare on rain-fed (sequeiro) parcels, both targeted at producers exposed to the spike in nitrogen-fertiliser prices and to higher diesel bills. The cabinet also lifted baseline farm-income support by 50% and topped up the sector envelope by a further €660 million for 2026 — money funnelled through the Plano Estratégico da Política Agrícola Comum (PEPAC, the Portuguese implementation plan for the EU Common Agricultural Policy).

Fernandes argued that the per-hectare numbers, while welcome, fall well short of what producers need to absorb fertiliser-cost jumps that have run between 18% and 25% year-on-year in nitrogen-based inputs alone. The Confederação dos Agricultores de Portugal (CAP, Confederation of Portuguese Farmers) and the Confederação Nacional da Agricultura (CNA, National Agriculture Confederation) both told the fair audience that the support needs to be at least three times larger to genuinely close the cost gap.

The Santarém setting

The Feira Nacional da Agricultura, which runs through 15 June at the Centro Nacional de Exposições, is one of the few politically symbolic settings where a sitting minister can credibly call for more money from his own treasury without triggering a coalition row. Prime Minister Luís Montenegro is expected at the fair on 12 June, with Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento opening the dedicated PEPAC stand on 10 June. Fernandes' Saturday remarks have effectively set the agenda for both visits.

The Brussels piece

Portugal's intervention lands ahead of a Commission decision expected before 30 June on whether to reopen the agricultural crisis reserve — a €450 million pot built into the 2025-2027 CAP framework. France, Spain and Italy have already filed for a share; Lisbon's case will draw on the latest Banco de Portugal (Bank of Portugal) data showing farm-gate input prices rising 6.4% in the year to April 2026, the fastest pace across the eurozone south. Fernandes told Lusa news agency on Saturday afternoon that he expects "a much more ambitious figure" once Brussels moves, and that bilateral coordination with Madrid had already begun.

For the producers walking the Santarém fairground, the practical near-term question remains the disbursement calendar. The Ministério da Agricultura (Ministry of Agriculture) has promised the €28 and €12 per-hectare top-ups will reach IBANs by the end of August, with PEPAC's enlarged baseline payments running on the standard October-to-December window.