Agricultural companies, the declaration of disaster must be sent by 2/24

The deadline for submitting the declaration of calamity in order to benefit from the so-called "carryover of days", the social security benefit for agricultural workers in affected areas, has been set for February 24, 2023.

With circular no. 5/2023, the National Institute of Social Security (INPS) published the necessary requirements to request the benefit, which consists of an additional recognition, to the days of work performed in 2022, of a number of days needed to reach those actually worked for the same employers in the year prior to the one in which the benefits for prevention and compensation interventions for natural disasters or exceptional events referred to in Article 1, paragraph 3, of Legislative Decree March 29, 2004, no. 102 are used.

The benefit is intended for employees employed in 2022 for a minimum of five working days, at an agricultural company referred to in Article 2135 of the Civil Code that has benefited from the National Solidarity Fund (FSN) and whose municipality falls within a declared disaster area.

The declarations of the interested companies, as usual, must be sent electronically with their own credentials or through an authorized intermediary, using the service provided on the INPS website called "Disaster Declarations (agricultural companies)".

Technical details

A necessary requirement for the aforementioned “carryover of days” is that the days of work must have been performed for the same employers.

The delimitation of the areas and municipalities of natural disaster are established by the Regions with specific decrees or resolutions.

The benefit is also recognized to small sharecroppers and family co-participants of companies that have benefited from the same interventions, who, for the granting, must send to the competent Institute Structures for the territory the form “SC95” - “Declaration for the granting to small sharecroppers/family co-participants of benefits following disastrous events or exceptional events”, available on the INPS Institute website.

The requests must be transmitted strictly by February 24, 2023 electronically. The applications submitted can be consulted in the main menu of the INPS institutional website in the section "Consultation of disaster declaration", where it will be possible to print the result file of the operation in PDF format.

If the request for the benefit has been rejected, the reason for the rejection must be specified in the receipt.

National Solidarity Fund

A binding condition for agricultural companies is to have benefited from at least one of the interventions referred to in Article 1, paragraph 3, of Legislative Decree no. 102/2004, the so-called National Solidarity Fund (FSN).

The Solidarity Fund, established with the aim of promoting interventions to prevent damage in agriculture in areas affected by disasters, provides a series of aids aimed at agricultural companies. The main ones are:

• Insurance policies, in the form of contributions on insurance premiums, the contribution is granted up to 80 percent of the cost of insurance premiums contracted by agricultural companies. The signing of insurance contracts is voluntary and can also take place in associative form,
• Interventions to promote the resumption of productive activity which can also be used by agricultural cooperatives. The applicant companies must have suffered damage exceeding 30 percent of their marketable production. The contributions provide for capital grants up to 80 percent of the ascertained damage, subsidized loans, extensions of granted agricultural credit, and social security benefits.
• Provisions relating to access to agricultural credit and the extension of payment of installments until the requested aid is disbursed, as well as the granting of guarantees to credit institutions that advance the aid amounts to applicant companies.
• Provisions relating to the partial exemption of social security contributions for companies meeting the requirements registered in the social security and welfare management. The exemption provided is up to 50 percent of the contributions due.
• Support for livestock businesses that, due to natural disasters caused by viruses or pathogens, must stop their activity.

The FSN also promotes the formation of defense consortia among agricultural entrepreneurs for the purpose of forming agricultural cooperatives or associations of farmers, for access to agricultural credit, to the capitalization of companies through the Ismea Institute, to guarantee the fulfillment of obligations undertaken by the company, and more.