The EU Commission yesterday released €30 million (£23.7m) as part of its medium-term response to the Russian trade embargo.

Russian leaders banned imports of food and drink from the EU, United States, Canada, Australia and Norway early last month, as tensions over the crisis in the Ukraine escalated. The measures are expected to last for at least a year.

On Wednesday, the Commission said it would provide additional funding of €30 million from the Common Agriculture Policy pot, to go towards promotion programmes starting in 2015. Funding announced on Wednesday comes on top of the €60 million already available from the CAP budget and measures worth over €150m intended to ease pressure on certain areas of the food and farming sector.  

The Commission said that, as promotion schemes are co-funded, producers are likely to benefit from promotion measures worth twice the value of the extra funding, and urged groups to come forward with plans for promotional campaigns. Officials said schemes for products that might otherwise have been exported to Russia will be given priority.

However, farming organisations have expressed concern over the EU's response to the ban, claiming that the CAP crisis fund will not be sufficient to offset the projected impacts of the year-long exports embargo. Some farm groups have also called for aid measures that have been made available for certain sectors (including horticulture and some dairy producers) to be expanded.  

Agriculture Commissioner Dacian Cioloș said on Wednesday, "Promotion programmes are one of the CAP instruments which can be used over the medium term to address the market difficulties expected in several sectors as a result of the Russian ban, helping producers to find new sales outlets within and outside the EU. Today's change means that €60 million of EU funding is available for promotion projects submitted by the end of this month.

"As this is co-funded by the promotion organisations themselves, this means that schemes worth at least €120 million could start running in 2015. I strongly encourage agricultural organisations to make the most of this opportunity and to present ambitious promotion schemes in the coming weeks".

To date, the Commission has released exceptional market support measures worth €33m (£26m) for peaches & nectarines and €125m (£99m) for other perishable fruit & vegetables. The EU executive has also announced that storage aid will be made available for butter, skimmed milk powder and cheese, which the Commissioner said would begin this week.

On Wednesday, NFU dairy board chair Rob Harrison appealed to the Commission to extend measures targeting the dairy sector.

In the UK, protest group Farmers for Action has been critical of the response to the ban, especially on the dairy sector where effects have been compounded by poor prices on the international dairy market. FFA has said it is considering more direct protests, and criticised the government for failing to redistribute milk and dairy products.

Ministers from across the EU will meet on Friday in an exceptional meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council to discuss the impacts of the ongoing ban.