Order no. 271/112/2024 for amending annex no. 4 to the Regulation on managing emergency situations caused by dangerous meteorological phenomena resulting in soil drought, approved by the Order of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Minister of Internal Affairs no. 97/63/2020, has been published in the Official Gazette.

According to the new regulations, the minutes of finding and evaluating damages to agricultural crops will be drafted following the newly approved provisions.

The affected area will be determined by measurement/assessment by the Commission for Finding and Evaluating Damages to Agricultural Crops.

Regarding the evaluation of the production level on the affected area, the finding and evaluation of production on the affected area will be carried out by the Commission for Finding and Evaluating Damages to Agricultural Crops, according to the Technical Rules for Evaluating Production for each affected crop.

The average production over the previous 5 years (kg/ha) will be calculated as follows: the average production over the previous 5 years, excluding the highest and lowest values, will be completed as follows:

a) For individual agricultural producers and/or authorized individuals and/or legal entities who do not have an activity history or do not have a history for the affected crop or have a history of less than 5 years, it will not be calculated and will be determined by the Commission for Finding and Evaluating Damages to Agricultural Crops based on querying the I.N.S. database - Tempo Online "AGR110A - Average production per hectare for main crops by ownership form, macroregions, development regions, and counties" for the respective crop/county;

b) For authorized individual agricultural producers and/or legal entities who have accounting records and have a history of activity for the respective crop, it will be established based on the production data from their own accounting records, provided to the commission by the agricultural producers;

c) For individual agricultural producers and/or authorized individuals and/or legal entities who have at least one finding and damage evaluation report completed in one of the previous 5 years, it will not be calculated and will be determined by the Commission for Finding and Evaluating Damages to Agricultural Crops based on querying the I.N.S. database - Tempo Online "AGR110A - Average production per hectare for main crops by ownership form, macroregions, development regions, and counties" for the respective crop/county.

To establish the percentage of damaged production, the Commission for Finding and Evaluating Damages to Agricultural Crops will apply the following calculation formula:

% = 100 – (evaluation of production level on the affected area / average production over the previous 5 years) x 100

The situation of the crops at the time of damage assessment will be determined by analyzing the following aspects: development stage, damage aspects, measures applied by the agricultural producer to reduce or limit damages, detailing the existing situation at the time of assessment, with reference to areas within the irrigated perimeter, and how much of the affected area is located within the irrigated perimeter (ha).

All findings and determinations will be made in the presence of the agricultural producer or an authorized representative.