Since March 1 over 1.2 million Romanian farmers have submitted requests for EU subsidies for their farming land by the May 15 deadline, a local government official told a press conference on Wednesday.

A total of 1.246 million farmers are eligible to receive subsidies from EU for an area of over 8.7 million hectares. Almost five million hectares are owned by farmers who possess larger than 50 hectares each, said Nicolae Sterghiu, General Manager of the Agency for Payment and Intervention in Agriculture (APIA),

The government will launch both administrative simultaneous checks and spot checks in the field from July 1 to verify what the farmer have applied for, Sterghiu said, adding that the checks will last for three months.

EU plans to grant 50 euros (64 U.S. dollars) for each hectare to the farmers, together with 30 euros (38 dollars) from the country's own financial budget. APIA will receive up to 717 million dollars this year from EU for the project.

Source: Xinhua