Animal Welfare Subsidies 2025 Have Started. What Does This Mean for Cattle Farmers? 🐄💰
The Agency for Restructuring and Modernisation of Agriculture (ARiMR) has started payments of animal welfare subsidies for the 2025 campaign. For many farms, this is important support during a period of high production costs and a difficult situation on the milk and livestock markets.
The first transfers have already reached farmers’ bank accounts — more than PLN 15 million was paid out in the first tranche alone. The entire payment process is expected to be completed by the end of June 2026.
Record Interest in the Program
This year, as many as 124,000 farmers applied for animal welfare subsidies — a record number of applications. The program budget amounts to PLN 1.05 billion; however, due to the high level of interest, the payment rates per point are lower than last year — on average by around 13%.
The current rate for cattle and pigs is:
➡️ PLN 80.83 per point
Despite the lower rates, many farmers emphasize that the support still helps partially cover the costs associated with improving animal housing conditions.
How Much Can Farmers Receive?
Examples of subsidy amounts:
🐄 Dairy cows — up to PLN 808.30 per animal for increasing living space by at least 50%
🐖 Sows — up to PLN 751.71 per animal
🐑 Sheep — PLN 124.89 per animal
🐎 Horses — up to PLN 349.75 per animal
🐐 Goats — PLN 120.61 per animal
The calculations were based on the euro exchange rate of September 30, 2025, which amounted to PLN 4.2698.
Animal Welfare Is No Longer Just About Subsidies
More and more farms are investing in animal welfare not only because of subsidies, but also to improve herd health, production performance, and reduce health-related problems.
Better housing conditions often mean:
✔️ lower animal stress levels
✔️ improved feed intake
✔️ fewer metabolic problems
✔️ better calf immunity
✔️ more stable milk production
In practice, this also means a greater emphasis on prevention and rapid response to problems appearing within the herd.
At Ruminta, we are developing solutions that support farmers in their everyday work — from products supporting calves during diarrhea, such as Diablock and Calfix, to solutions supporting cows during the transition period and metabolic stress.
Worth Remembering
Although this year’s rates are lower than before, the animal welfare program remains one of the most important sources of support for farms keeping cattle and other livestock animals.
For many farmers, it is real support in maintaining financial liquidity and continuing farm development.
