Ljubljana - The Chamber of Agriculture and Forestry (KGZS) has welcomed a set of measures the government took on Friday to help farmers amid growing prices, including the financial aid worth over EUR 22 million, the purchase of this year's entire wheat harvest, and regular monitoring of prices of 15 food products.

The chamber said in Monday's statement that the government had taken into account all their proposals as it had acknowledged that primary agricultural production is in a really difficult financial situation. "The cost of inputs is extremely high and farm-gate prices are not keeping up with these increases."

The KGZS intends to coordinate the implementation of the measures with the government to ensure that they bring results, except for the milk sector, whose measures had already been harmonised with the previous government.

The chamber welcomed the government's plan to buy the entire wheat harvest. However, it warned that the measure came a bit late as the harvest is already well underway and is also a big logistical undertaking while talks on wheat prices had not yet even started.

The chamber would however further upgrade the announced measure to monitor the prices of 15 products agreed between the Chamber of Commerce and the Agriculture Ministry.

It proposes passing a law to set down a requirement for labelling food products with a price breakdown to show how much each stakeholder in the food chain gets.

To see "how much the farmer gets, how much the food processing industry gets, how much the grocery store gets and how much the state gets through tax".

The chamber argues that betting on the low price only could present a distorted picture.

Although the government is not considering cutting VAT on food, the KGZS does not support such a measure, arguing it would not be right if only the final retail price of for instance meat was tax-free. Such a measure should also apply to the other stakeholders, including farmers, who buy the seeds, fuel, feed for animals, and pay the tax.

The chamber therefore proposes to the government to "intervene with some kind of regulation of margins" if the food prices should rise considerably.