Andalusia seeks €3.72 million in crisis aid for rice growers
Andalusia has submitted a proposal for approximately €3.72 million in extraordinary support for regional rice growers. The plan would pay €120 per hectare as farmers contend with high production costs, unsold 2025 stocks and pressure from duty-free imports.
Regional government sends proposal to Madrid
Andalusia's Department of Agriculture has submitted a proposal for extraordinary aid to the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture to support the region's rice producers. The measure, initiated by ASAJA-Sevilla and the Federation of Rice Growers of Seville, would be financed through the European Union's agricultural crisis reserve.
According to Agrodigital, the plan would allocate approximately €3.72 million to rice cultivation, providing €120 per hectare with a maximum eligible area of 100 hectares per beneficiary. A grower reaching the ceiling could therefore receive up to €12,000. The proposal still requires backing from the national ministry and authorization from the European Commission.
The rice allocation would represent 40% of the extraordinary crisis-reserve funding assigned to Andalusia. The remaining regional funds would support dairy cattle, dairy goats and beekeeping. The reserve is intended to offset increases in energy and fertilizer costs, two significant components of agricultural production expenditure.
Unsold stocks weigh on the 2026 harvest
The request comes as Andalusian rice farming faces a difficult return to fuller production. Cultivated area has recovered with improved water availability after several years in which drought prevented planting, but growers are now struggling to sell their crop. Harvesting for the 2026 season is already under way while part of Seville's 2025 crop remains unsold.
ASAJA-Sevilla and the Federation of Rice Growers say current market prices do not cover production costs. They describe the proposed payment as partial financial relief rather than a solution to the crop's longer-term problems. Its immediate purpose would be to ease pressure on farm finances and compensate for part of the increase in input costs.
Seville province contains almost all of Andalusia's rice area and accounts for approximately half of Spain's national production. Weak profitability therefore has implications beyond individual farms, affecting employment and economic activity in the region. The organizations also link the crop's viability to the conservation of the Guadalquivir marshes and the area surrounding Doñana.
Growers call for safeguards on imports
The two organizations attribute much of the market pressure to increasing imports from countries outside the EU. They say the bloc permits duty-free entry of up to 562,000 tonnes of rice from beneficiaries of the Everything But Arms scheme, including Cambodia and Myanmar. According to the growers' groups, that volume is equivalent to two years of total rice consumption in Spain and puts substantial pressure on the EU market.
The organizations argue that European growers must comply with strict environmental, plant-health, labor and food-safety requirements that raise their costs, while competing against duty-free imports which, in their assessment, face less demanding standards. They are asking for reciprocity in trade with third countries, stronger enforcement of Spain's Food Chain Law and effective safeguards for rice entering under preferential access arrangements.
The immediate timetable is tight. ASAJA-Sevilla and the Federation of Rice Growers want the ministry to endorse the regional proposal and the European Commission to authorize it in time for the aid to be processed, justified and paid by February 28, 2027. Even if approved, the €120-per-hectare payment would address only part of the sector's financial pressure, leaving pricing, import competition and production costs at the center of the industry's longer-term debate.
