ZAGREB (Croatia), December 7 (SeeNews) – The World Bank said on Friday it approved a $5.0 million (3.4 million euro) grant to support a project for agricultural pollution control in European Union (EU) candidate Croatia.
”The project will assist the government in increasing the use of environmentally friendly agricultural practices by farmers in Croatia’s Pannonian plain in order to reduce nutrient discharge from agricultural sources to surface and ground waters”, the World Bank said in a statement.
The project should help Croatia to meet the EU requirements for protection of waters against pollution caused by nitrates from agricultural sources and to modernise its agricultural sector, the statement added.
Croatia started EU accession talks in October 2005 and hopes to join the bloc by the end of the decade.
“The project will also benefit farmers and the local community economically, as with the development and application of more competitive and innovative ways of farming, Croatia’s farmers will be able to compete on an equal footing with their European counterparts once Croatia joins the European Union,” Andras Horvai, World Bank Country Manager for Croatia, said in the statement.
Since 1993, when Croatia joined the World Bank, the organisation has supported 37 projects with a total value of $2.3 billion. It also assisted the country with 49 grants, worth $57 million.
($=0.6832 euro)