EU livestock farm subsidies and cross-compliance controls on agricultural subsidies

If you have a livestock farm that receives EU subsidies, your farm may be selected at random for a sampling-based animal welfare inspection. At these farms, we check compliance with EU legislation and with Finnish legislation concerning animal welfare.

Our national legislation is in many respects stricter about animal welfare matters than EU legislation. Enforcement inspections are principally not announced in advance.

Enforcement of cross-compliance standards

In order to be granted certain agricultural subsidies, the recipient must comply with certain additional conditions that have to do with good agricultural practice. The recipient will have committed to practising agriculture according to certain criteria when applying for the subsidies.

We enforce compliance with these additional conditions on production animal farms with a view to food safety, notification of animal diseases and animal welfare.

Each year, a number of farms are selected for enforcement of additional condition based on a random sample or a weighted sample. Principally, we do not announce inspection visits in advance.

We also enforce additional conditions on the basis of animal welfare inspections conducted by ourselves and of inspections conducted by local authority officials.

Information about the enforcement of EU subsidies

What consequences can an animal welfare inspection have?

If we observe any shortcomings in compliance with regulations, in the least severe cases we may give instructions on how to rectify them. If the shortcomings are such that they can be rectified actually during the inspection visit, then no further action will be necessary.

If the shortcomings cannot be rectified immediately or are such that merely giving instructions is not enough, we will issue an order. An order includes a deadline by which the matter indicated must be rectified. After that, we will conduct a new inspection.

Non-compliance with EU legislation will cause the inspection to be expanded into enforcement of additional conditions, and this may have an impact on your agricultural subsidies.

Information about the enforcement of additional conditions

What possible consequences are there of the enforcement of additional conditions?

Our enforcement is only part of the enforcement system for the additional conditions.