Holders of dryland cereal farms in the Valencia region have ten days to claim compensation for part of the losses caused when red wildfire alerts halted harvesting. The decree published on Wednesday 4 November sets the payment at €100 per eligible hectare, backed by a total budget of €2 million.
Growing cereal this summer is not enough on its own. A holding must include at least one hectare of dryland cereal in the Valencia region, have been registered with that crop in the Agricultural Holdings Register on 31 May 2026, and remain under the same holder when the application is filed. Individuals, companies and entities without legal personality may qualify.
The register allows the regional government to identify potential recipients, but the grant is not automatic. Each holder must file one application covering all plots for which compensation is sought. The procedure is available through the Generalitat’s online office. Companies and others legally required to communicate online with the administration must use that channel; applicants who are not subject to that requirement may also use any register accepted under administrative law.
A payment based on area, not a declared loss
The calculation uses eligible hectares of dryland cereal at €100 per hectare. If approved claims add up to more than the €2 million available, the decree requires all payments to be reduced proportionally. EU agricultural de minimis rules also apply: a single undertaking may not receive more than €50,000 in this category of aid over any three-year period.
No individual damage valuation is required. Supporting documents focus on identity or representation where the administration cannot retrieve the information, and on bank details. Before payment is ordered, recipients must have an account in their own name correctly registered and updated in the Generalitat’s third-party payment system. Tax, Social Security, representation and agricultural-register data will be checked directly where the applicant authorises the query or does not object, depending on the dataset.
The application period starts on Thursday 5 November. Because this is an administrative deadline stated in days without specifying calendar days, working days apply; under the ordinary calendar, the final day is Wednesday 18 November. If documents are missing, the urgent procedure leaves five working days to correct the application.
Eleven full-region days when harvesting was barred
The compensation stems from restrictions imposed in June, July and August. The preventive resolution issued in June suspended combine harvesters and other spark-producing machinery for the entire day whenever wildfire pre-emergency level 3 was declared. The new decree says there were eleven days when that alert covered the whole Valencia region, in addition to other episodes affecting smaller areas.
Agricultural organisations estimated the campaign’s production loss at around 35%, a figure included by the Consell in the decree’s explanatory section. The impact varied: some plots produced less grain or grain of poorer commercial quality, while other crops could not be gathered at all. The grant therefore does not reimburse the exact loss on each farm; it provides a standard payment based on area.
The Valencian Agency for Agricultural Development and Guarantee will decide the awards and authorise payment. Its decision will be published in the Official Journal of the Generalitat Valenciana, with 31 December set as the deadline. If no decision has been notified by then, the application is deemed refused under the administrative-silence rule.