Grants to the dairy sector for brine vats and salting rooms

The aid is aimed at companies in the dairy sector for initiatives relating to the renovation of cheese salting rooms and the adaptation of existing brine vats and the construction of new salting rooms and brine vats.

In particular, costs relating to works, supplies and equipment are eligible for funding.

Initiatives are eligible for funding if they involve real estate that is at the applicant's disposal by virtue of a right in rem or a registered contract of the same duration as the intended use of the initiative. Such real estate must appear in the farm file.

Only one aid application may be submitted.

The aid intensity is 40% of eligible expenditure for those listed in Article 2(1)(d) and (e) of Provincial Law No 4/2003.

The aid intensity is 30% of the eligible expenditure for the capital companies listed in Article 28(2) of Provincial Law 4/2003.

Aid will be granted as capital expenditure.

The minimum amount of preliminary expenditure for each application is Euro 30,000.00 excluding VAT.

The maximum amount eligible for aid per individual application is Euro 400,000.00.

With reference to large enterprises, the aid must be limited to the minimum in order to make the project sufficiently profitable ("net extra cost"). In particular, the amount of aid corresponds to the net extra costs of implementing the investment, compared to the counterfactual scenario without aid.

The following costs are not considered eligible

1. working capital;
2. purchases of used equipment;
3. lease purchases;
4. demolition works;
5. interest payable and bank and legal fees, legal advice fees, notary fees, financial advice fees, current account charges;
6. expenses for surety guarantees;
7. VAT;
8. work to restore the existing building stock when this can be configured as ordinary repair and maintenance;
9. purchases of hardware and adaptations of existing software intended for office activities (administration, accounting, etc.);
10. the costs of work in-house carried out directly by the beneficiary;
11. consumables including parts or spare parts of machines and equipment, signs, plaques, signs
12. the costs of design and supervision of works when entrusted to members of the boards of directors of the applicant companies;
13. purchases of land;
14. investments made to comply with European Union standards;
15. contributions that contravene the requirements of Regulation (EU) 1308/2013 on the common organisation of the markets in agricultural products (CMO);
16. costs for the production of "biofuels produced from food crops" as defined in point 2.4 (49) of the Guidelines.

Grant applications must be submitted from 26 March 2022 to 31 May 2022.

Pursuant to Article 12(1) of Provincial Law 4/2003, the initiatives subject to funding must be carried out after the application has been submitted.

In order to be eligible for funding, the initiative must in any case be carried out in compliance with the provisions set out in the notice of criteria approved by decision of the Provincial Council no. 488 dated 25 March 2022.

The early commencement or purchase prior to the grant of the contribution shall not in any case bind the administration to grant the relevant contribution.

The granting of the contribution entails the obligation for the beneficiary to respect the use of the real estate for at least 10 years and of the movable property for at least 3 years starting from the date of the application for final verification as established by Article 6 of Provincial Law 4/2003.

In the case of use or alienation of the property before the expiry of the terms referred to in the preceding paragraphs, the beneficiaries are obliged, except in the case of force majeure, to repay the contribution granted in proportion to the residual duration of the current period.

The residual duration is calculated from the date of ascertainment of the circumstances giving rise to the revocation of the subsidy until the end of the respective period. The corresponding amount is to be repaid plus interest at the statutory rate.

The grantee of the grants shall in any case allow the staff in charge of monitoring the application of the applicable rules free access to the facilities and documentation pertaining to the subject matter of the grant awarded.

Checks on compliance with the obligations imposed on applicants under Article 6 of Provincial Law no. 4/2003 are carried out on a sample equal to 5% of the interventions subject to constraints, in accordance with the provincial regulations in force. The control on the substitutive declarations of certification and affidavit will be carried out on a sample of at least 5% of the files, according to the provisions of the provincial regulations in force on the matter.

METHODS OF PAYMENT

Expenditure paid solely by bank or postal transfer or by RIBA, to current accounts in the name of or co-owned by the beneficiary, even if not exclusively.

In no case may payment be made in cash.

Payment must be evidenced by the beneficiary.

The Unique Project Code (CUP), assigned by the competent service for agriculture, must be indicated in all invoices(style sheet) and in all payments. In the case of invoices and payments dated prior to the notification of the CUP, regularisation is permitted by reporting the CUP with a separate declaration by the beneficiary.

If the credit transfer is ordered through "home banking", the grantee is required to produce a printout of the transaction showing the date and number of the transaction executed, as well as a description of the reason for the transaction to which it refers, and a printout of the statement of account referring to the transaction or any other document proving that the transaction took place.

For payments made by means of the F24 form relating to social security contributions, withholding taxes and social security charges, a copy of the F24 form must be provided at the time of reporting with the receipt of the Revenue Agency relating to the payment or to the verified compensation or the stamp of the entity accepting the payment (bank, post office).

Eligible for aid under this notice are small, medium and large enterprises, in particular

• agricultural cooperatives and cooperatives for the collection, processing and marketing of agricultural products and their consortia, which are listed in the Register of Cooperatives of the Province of Trento pursuant to Regional Law No 7 of 29 January 1954 (Vigilanza sulle cooperative), and agricultural associations, however named, provided they are legally constituted (Article 2(1)(d) of Provincial Law No 4/2003)
• farmers' associations recognised under the relevant legislation in force (Article 2(1)(e) of Provincial Law 4/2003);
• corporations other than those referred to in Article 2(1)(i) provided they carry out activities that contribute to improving the situation of basic agricultural production sectors in the agri-food industry (Article 28(2) of Provincial Law 4/2003).

and which

• have an operational headquarters in the Province of Trento
• are in possession of a business file in the Province of Trento and validated in the year of application; if they do not have one , it must be set up with a CAA;
• are not companies in difficulty as defined in Chapter 2.4, paragraph (35), point 15 of the European Union Guidelines for State Aid;
• do not have an outstanding recovery order following a Commission decision declaring the aid unlawful and incompatible with the internal market.

The application may be submitted by the legal representative of the company,( a consultant may be usedto enter the application in SRTrento only ).

The application for assistance must be submitted exclusively in telematic mode (online) by accessing the portal https://srt.infotn.it.

Access to the reserved area of SRTrento is allowed only to registered users, therefore each user must be accredited in advance according to the procedures indicated in the manual on the home page as specified on this web page We recommend in this regard to carefully consult the manual for first access to the portal, where the various phases of the accreditation procedure are detailed. Applications submitted must be signed using a valid digital signature device, so it is advisable to have one in advance. For any assistance in accessing and enabling the portal, please contact helpdesk.srtrento@provincia.tn.it.

The application must be digitally signed by the person entitled to sign the document, otherwise it will be inadmissible.

Any VARIANTS to the initiative, which must be pertinent to the technical and economic aims of the intervention, must be requested in advance through the computerised procedures of the portal https://srt.infotn.it/, digitally signed by the applicant and must contain a list of the documentation that is in principle traceable to that envisaged for the submission of the grant application. The same may be reduced according to the relevance of the variant submitted and with respect to the expenses affected by the variant, including an explanatory report and a comparative table.

The outcome of any approval of the variant shall be communicated to the beneficiary.

• simple copy of the duly signed minutes or extract thereof with which the competent statutory body approves the initiative;
• technical and economic report, which must contain the following elements

1. overall description of the undertaking, including the number of quintals of milk processed in the last three years and an indication of the year in which the salting rooms and brine vats covered by the initiative were built
2. reasons for and detailed description of the investment
3. economic evaluation and financial sustainability of the investment.

The technical-economic report must be signed by the legal representative of the applicant company, by the trade association if the applicant company is a member, by the chairman of the internal control body, if appointed, and by the statutory auditor, if appointed, or otherwise by a registered auditor.

Depending on the type of initiatives planned, the additional documentation to be submitted is set out in point 6.3 of Provincial Council Resolution No. 488 of 25 March 2022 (see section Documents), under penalty of inadmissibility.

The legal representative must indicate on the grant application the dedicated (not necessarily exclusive) current account used for the payment of expenses relating to the financed project .

Documents to be submitted to request CONTRIBUTION LIQUIDATION AND REPORTING:

Depending on the type of initiatives planned, the documentation to be submitted for acceptance is set out in points 10.1 and 10.2 of the Resolution of the Provincial Council no. 488 dated 25 March 2022 (see section Documents), under penalty of inadmissibility.

Grant applications submitted within the deadline are included in a ranking list to be approved by decision of the Director of the Agricultural Service within 30 days starting from the day following the deadline for submitting applications. The ranking list is drawn up on the basis of the points assigned to the applications in compliance with the selection criteria set out in the notice of criteria.

The outcome of the ranking list is communicated to the beneficiary and for the applications that cannot be financed due to lack of resources, a non-acceptance measure pursuant to Provincial Law 23/1992 is adopted and communicated to the beneficiary.

Applications eligible for financing in the priority list are subject to preliminary investigation by the Agricultural Service. The preliminary examination of the application concludes with the adoption of a provision granting the contribution by the Director of the Agriculture Service and then the beneficiary is notified of the amount of the admitted expenditure, the contribution granted, the prescriptions to be complied with and all the useful information for the presentation of the application for payment.

The deadline for settling the claim is set in the grant award decision and is communicated to the beneficiary and may be extended if necessary.

The final payment of the grant is made after submitting the appropriate application through the computerised procedures of the portal https://srt.infotn.it/ digitally signed by the applicant. The application must contain all the prescribed documentation and the relevant allocation of eligible expenses, net of VAT.