Traditional agricultural practices are still common in Romania. Photo: Olga Pavlovsky

Add to the confusion the fact that Romania has some of the best agricultural land in Europe. To take the reader to the point of questioning his sanity add for some spice the fact that Romania imports, wheat, corn, poultry, pork, onions and garlic the imported food bill exceeding € 2.5 Bn!

Collectivism: Memories that won't die

Quite clearly those living in the country are not pulling their economic weight contributing only 6% of the gross domestic product. Why?

First, it is necessary to understand the history of land which is a complex subject.

Briefly under communism land was collectivised.  The process was often brutal with those questioning the process of land consolidation disappearing to undertake forced labour often constructing the Danube canal.  Some were even sent to prison.

Collectives – compulsory associations of the rural community supplemented by managers, engineers, accountants etc paid directly by the State could not buy their own machinery but were obliged to purchase agricultural services from Machine and Tractor Stations.

Produce purchased by food processing units of production paid the cooperatives a ridiculously low price. This resulted in cooperatives frequently operating at a loss. Hence income for those who worked the land was minimal to the point where it was often accepted practice to steal from the cooperative under cover of darkness. They had to steal, otherwise they would have died.

The process of collectivisation took almost everything from the individual.  At most a person could have 0.15 of a hectare on which you could grow vegetables, keep a pig and a few chickens. Even so, the personal garden was more productive than income from the cooperative.

The cooperative was seen as a system of forced labour which benefited party activists, the State and those paid by it. 

It is no surprise therefore that after the Revolution of 1989 the rural had a venom and anger towards the collective system which was quickly destroyed.  Land restitution followed an ad-hoc process resulting in individuals owning small plots of land in some cases who they had two or more many kilometres from each other. 

Associations of private farmers didn't really work or were not even tried; narrow strips of land were more easily and economically ploughed by horse or buffalo rather than by tractor so Romanian agriculture in the main returned to subsistence strip farming. It's stuck in that rut in part because agricultural diesel is no longer subsidised.

Limited motivation and capacity to change

Access to European agricultural funds is only available to applicants with more than 50 hectares. That means rural farmers working together but the pain from the past makes that idea anathema to many they preferring a subsistence lifestyle and under-employment.

With young people in the rural areas emigrating abroad or migrating to the cities an increasing proportion of the rural population is ageing and not motivated to change or adopting new ways.

Even where farmers are motivated to seek European subsidy the process of application is complex and dependant upon a degree of expertise and understanding not always available within rural local authority structures.

Foreign footholds in the food industry

Foreign investment in agriculture is present.  A limited amount of money is flowing into actual farming but this is hampered by the difficulty of purchasing sufficient hectares to be economically efficient. 

Other investment in agricultural land is simply speculative rather than focused on actual production.

Food processing is a lucrative business where overseas investment is present and of course the supermarkets and hypermarkets are almost all foreign.  End consumers pay a high price whilst agrarian producers complain that they receive very little. 

There's a big profit being made somewhere in the food chain.  The sooner Tesco becomes established in Romania the better. 

Its time that the Romanian business motto of keeping prices high is replaced by the competitive one about driving prices down!

(Photo: Olga Pavlovsky)