Food Security Alert Romania"s Wheat Crop Down 45%

• Lack of funds is jeopardizing the regular farming works planned for this Autumn

• Farmers threaten to stage new protests starting in September

• Only 25% of the wheat crop is suitable for baking.

Romania"s wheat crop could plunge 40-45% this year, according to worrying forecasts made by farmers, who have already threatened to stage further protests starting in September. They are claiming that the lack of funds for agriculture has caused a chain of problems since the very beginning of the year and, given the ongoing crisis, any hope for matching last year"s record-high crop is out of question.

Stefan Nicolae, President of the Agrostar Federation, told BURSA that his estimate for this year was half of last year"s crop. "Last year"s crop was over 7 million tonnes of wheat. The estimate for this year is 4-4.5 million tonnes, which is 40-45% less," Nicolae said. According to him, the drought at the beginning of the year followed by abundant rain falls in the general context of a poor irrigation infrastructure are the main causes for bad farming performance. Additionally, Nicolae believes that the State shares a great deal of the fault for not having ensured proper financing for farming.

"The lack of subsidies, the problems with the excises on Diesel, the legal gridlock of the law on farming loans and the procrastination proven in handling the matter of the chemical fertilizers required for the farming works last Spring are just some of the problems that have brought us in the current situation," Stefan Nicolae told BURSA.

• Farmers warn: There is no money for the Autumn works!

Stefan Nicolae stressed that Agrostar was going to stage new protests in September to once again make the authorities aware of the problems Romanian farmers were facing. In addition to the already known problems, a very serious matter has recently come to public attention: farmers have no money to start the regular farming works planned for this Autumn.

"We will resume protests in September to warn that there is no money to start the Autumn works. We are facing the risk of a farming disaster! Our plan is to press for the revocation of the excises on Diesel, the promulgation of the law on farming loans and specific subsidies per hectare," Nicolae told BURSA.

Ioan Niculae, the CEO of InterAgro Group, recently said that the farming crisis would peak in end-September or early October, when many farmers would be prevented from starting seasonal works. "There is a risk of not harvesting anything this Autumn," farmers replied at that time.

• Anything can be promised

In turn, Viorel Matei, President of the National Federation of Agricultural Producers in Romania (FNPAR), also expressed his concern with the future wheat crop. "The initial estimate was 6.9 million tonnes of wheat. My current estimate is 3.2 - 3.4 million tonnes, considering the countless problems we are facing. Nevertheless, we will have enough wheat to cover the domestic consumption, which is 2.2 - 2.3 million tonnes per year," Matei said.

Asked about the future farming works planned for Autumn, Viorel Matei exemplified saying that many farmers in Timis County had given up on ploughing and other preparations. "We have plenty of promises from the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Finance. They promised to disburse 70-80% of the subsidies for 2009 and to revoke the excises on Diesel. Additionally, they also came up with the certificates of grain deposits as a form of support. If all this fails, the Autumn works will be extremely difficult. More difficult even than what we faced in 2008," he said.

• Romapan: "The quality of the wheat crop is poor"

This year"s crop is estimated to be especially poor, not only in terms of quantity, but of quality, too. Aurel Popescu, President of the baking industry federation Rompan. He told BURSA that from an estimated crop of 4.5 million tonnes of wheat, only 1 million tonnes was suitable for baking. "The quality of the wheat crop is poor," Popescu said. He announced that Rompan and the Institute for Nutritional Bio-Resources were implementing a project financed by the World Bank to treat and improve a part of the fodder-grade wheat. Referring to imports, Aurel Popescu said the exact status would be known after 15 August, when the domestic crop would have been inventoried.

• Matei: "We want a law on investments!"

FNPAR President Viorel Matei also stressed that farmers urgently needed a law on investment loans. "If we had such law, we could take loans with an interest rate between 4% and 8%, just as it is in Europe. Things would be entirely different in the Romanian agricultural sector," Matei said. In his opinion, the market is currently in stalemate, because of the price of grains. "Today, things are much worse than yesterday, and much better than tomorrow," said Adrian Radulescu, President of the Romanian Agricultural Producers League (LAPAR), referring to the general context in the agricultural sector.