Agriculture, at a crossroads

• Starting in 2010, state aids may no longer be allowed

• Farmers warn that without the state"s billions Romania will become 100% dependent on imports

• The state"s contribution to the payments per hectare might be increased by 20%

A delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture will be leaving for Brussels today, in order to negotiate with the officials of the European Commission (CE) a 20% increase of the subsidy allocated by the Romanian state for the payments per hectare for 2009, sources from the Ministry stated for our newspaper.

The subsidy per hectare for 2009, which will be allocated after December 1st, includes a financial allocation of 71 Euros (European funds) and a contribution from the state budget which will be set shortly, in agreement with Brussels.

The payment per hectare for 2008 is 107 Euros (60.75 Euros coming from the EU and 46.71 Euros from the state budget), and according to the procedure, this amount will increase annually.

According to our information, in 2009, farmers may receive a subsidy of around 140 Euros per hectare.

In asking the EU to allow a larger state budget contribution, Romania"s team will use two arguments: the first would be the issues generated by the economic and financial crisis, which could cause Brussels to be a little more lenient, and the second is that the three year period during which the state is allowed to provide aid to farmers will expire in 2010.

This restriction will most likely have a major impact on Romania"s agriculture, which is dependent on state aid.

In order to increase the compensation by hectare, Romania"s authorities, together with various farmer organizations, have taken countless actions with the European institutions.

Romania"s agriculture provides plenty of reasons to be concerned, especially as the aids that Romanian producers receive are far below those of Western farmers, (which means they can"t compete on the common European market), and secondly, because we are probably just nine months away from the time when the State will be forbidden from aiding farmers any more.

State aid for farmers budgeted for 2009, amounts to 2,231,904,000 lei and will be granted in the form of subsidies for livestock farmers, the vegetable farming sector, subsidization of farming loans, diesel oil, domestic seed production and land improvement.

"There is no way we can have competitive farming in Romania without these aids ", Ştefan Nicolae, president of the Agrostar Federation.

He said that farmers are extremely concerned by the possibility of these aids being cut starting 2010, and he said that Romania runs the risk of becoming 100% reliant on imports, if it is going to only rely on European farming subsidies or on the National Rural Development Program, especially as the latter didn"t work so well.

In turn, Daniel Botanoiu, the executive manager of the National Federation of Romanian Farmers (FNPAR), said that his organization has requested that the state aids be maintained by 2013, when the subsidies per hectare received by Romanian farmers will be similar to those received by Western farmers.

Agrostar also requested, through a memorandum, that the state aid be extended until 2013, an answer on this matter being expected in the coming months.