HELSINKI, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Possibilities of the European Union (EU) to provide its farmers with additional aid in the wake of the summer drought appear to be limited, Finnish media reported Monday.

European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Phil Hogan has responded to a joint letter from the Nordic and Baltic agricultural producers asking for crisis assistance.

Juhani Marttila, chairman of the Finnish agricultural producers organisation on Monday told the media that "no crisis help would be coming". He did not publish the text of the letter from the commissioner though.

Marttila said the conclusion must be that the drought problem is so huge that the EU has not sufficient funding for taking care of it.

"The EU view is that it has done all it can do," Marttila told the news service Lannen Media.

Marttila acknowledged the rescheduling of EU payments of the regular amounts, but said additional measures are needed.

In Finland, national level emergency assistance to farmers will be discussed by the cabinet in coming days.

Earlier in August, the EU announced rescheduling of regular EU payments and some rules were made temporarily more flexible.

Farmers will be able to receive up to 70 percent of their direct payment and 85 percent of payments under rural development already in mid-October instead of waiting until December.

The EU announced also some easing of specific greening requirements in order to ease production of animal feed. Further measures would be considered to benefit livestock farmers, the Aug. 2 EU statement said.

In the statement, Hogan said he was "encouraging all member states to look into all possible actions and measures". He also mentioned state aid as one of the remedies. Enditem

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