Romania might obtain a record production of cereals in 2013

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Romania might obtain a cereals output of about 18-19 million tons if things go well in the near future, Achim Irimescu, state secretary with the Ministry of Agriculture told a seminar on agriculture, organised by Ziarul Financiar, money.ro informs. “We hope to have a good agricultural production this year, but until we see the crop in barns we can only speak of estimations and hopes,” Irimescu mentioned. he considers that the animal sector should be encouraged, so we no longer export grain and efficiently use our crop of cereals. “In 2011 we were Europe’s 5th largest exporter of cereals and I am not very delighted with this position,” Irimescu explained. Romanian farmers complained that they suffered losses worth EUR 2.5-3 bln last year because of draught, as the average output per hectare diminished by 50 pc for sunflower and by 80 pc for corn compared to 2011.Statistics show that last year’s draught caused losses exceeding EUR 4 bln to the economy. The record results of 2011, more than EUR 19 M, brought by local agriculture contributed to an economic growth of 2.5 pc in 2011.

Foreigners will not buy lots of land, after liberalisation

Foreign individuals will not buy farmland on a large scale in Romania after transactions get liberalised on January 1st 2014, but the state wants to enforce some conditions for the acquisition of lands, Irimescu, further said, Mediafax reports. “For example, starting with a certain surface, let’s say 5 hectares, buyers should be farmers and have training in this field,” Irimescu said He said even now, foreigners may buy lands in Romania, if they set up a company. “I doubt that natural persons will purchase lands now, when foreign legal entities already acquired almost one million hectares. (…) The evil was already done when legal entities were allowed to purchase land,” the ministry official added.In 2010, Romania had a total agricultural surface of 13.3 million hectares, including 8.3 million hectares of arable land.