- adverse climatic event
means weather conditions, such as frost, storms and hail, ice, heavy rain or severe drought, which can be assimilated to a natural disaster;
- agricultural area
means any area taken up by arable land, permanent grassland and permanent pasture or permanent crops as defined in Article 4 of Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013;
- animal diseases
means diseases mentioned in the list of animal diseases established by the World Organisation for Animal Health or in the Annex to Council Decision 2009/470/EC;
- cluster
means a grouping of independent undertakings, including start-ups, small, medium and large undertakings as well as advisory bodies and/or research organisations - designed to stimulate economic/ innovative activity by promoting intensive interactions, the sharing of facilities and the exchange of knowledge and expertise, as well as contributing effectively to knowledge transfer, networking and information dissemination among the undertakings in the cluster;
- date of setting up
means the date when the applicant performs or completes (an) action(s) related to the setting up referred to in point (n).
- economic losses
means any additional cost incurred by a farmer as a result of exceptional measures taken by the farmer with the objective of reducing supply on the market concerned or any substantial loss of production;
- environmental incident
means a specific occurrence of pollution, contamination or degradation in the quality of the environment which is related to a specific event and is of limited geographical scope;
- farmer
means active farmer within the meaning of Article 9 of Regulation (EU) No 1307/2013, as applicable in the Member State concerned.
- fixed costs
means the costs incurred for entering a supported quality scheme and the annual contribution for participating in that scheme, including, where necessary, expenditure on checks required to verify compliance with the specifications of the scheme.
- forest
means an area of land spanning more than 0,5 hectares with trees higher than 5 meters and a canopy cover of more than 10 percent, or trees able to reach these thresholds in situ;
- measure
means a set of operations contributing to one or more of the Union priorities for rural development;
- mutual fund
means a scheme accredited by the Member State in accordance with its national law for affiliated farmers to insure themselves, whereby compensation payments are made to affiliated farmers for economic losses caused by the outbreak of adverse climatic events or an animal or plant disease or pest infestation or an environmental incident, or for a severe drop in their income.
- region
means a territorial unit corresponding to level 1 or 2 of the Nomenclature of territorial units for statistics (NUTS level 1 and 2) within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council;
- support rate
means the rate of public contribution to an operation;
- transaction cost
means an additional cost linked to fulfilling a commitment, but not directly attributable to its implementation or not included in the costs or income foregone that are compensated directly;
- young farmer
means a person who is no more than 40 years of age at the moment of submitting the application, possesses adequate occupational skills and competence and is setting up for the first time in an agricultural holding as head of that holding;