HotNews.roVineri, 10 octombrie 2014,

FILE REPORTAGE on RO fragmentation of agricultural land

Romania is the third country in the European Union as the degree of fragmentation of agricultural land by Malta and Cyprus, two countries minuscule, according to official data of the Ministry of Agriculture. In the country there are 830,200 agricultural farms of 1-5 hectares each, occupying nearly one-fifth of total agricultural area of Romania. Warns investors to be able to buy agricultural land in Romania for merging surfaces, require the state to achieve general survey. In the past two years, the country has among the most bulky agricultural production in the EU, but the European Commission cautions that Romania should not export agricultural commodities, but processed food products to get more money.

The average size of farms in Romania is only 3.4 hectares, making it the country ante-penultimate place in the European Union regarding the degree of consolidation of land. Only two very small EU countries, Malta (0.9 ha) and Cyprus (3 hectares) have agricultural land parceled lesser than in Romania, according to official data of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Media EU (28 countries) is 14.2 hectares of land on the farm.

For comparison, the Czech Republic, all former communist country as Romania, is the first among the degree of consolidation of land, with an average of 152.4 ha. In second place is the UK, with 90.4 ha, and the podium is completed by Slovakia with 77.5 ha on average the farm.

An agricultural power of the EU, Germany is ranked sixth in terms comsarii lands, with 55.8 ha per holding, followed by France, with an average of 53.9 ha.

Destination for Romanian labor force, Spain is ranked 14th, with an average of 24 ha farm. In contrast, Italy is below the European average in terms of the degree of consolidation of agricultural tereurilor, ranking 21st place with an average of 7.9 ha.

Among our neighbors, Hungary has an average of 8.1 ha farms and Bulgaria 12.1 ha, quite small, but much better than the situation in Romania.

"Farms" Romanian - and what not

The degree of fragmentation of land in Romania is illustrated by small parcels share in total agricultural areas, according to the situation of the Ministry of Agriculture on agricultural holdings eligible for subsidies on the surface (SAPS).

In 2013, in Romania worked more than 1 million farms with a total area of 9.94 million hectares.

Thus, in 2013, the Romans had 830,200 agricultural farms with areas between 1 and 5 hectares each. These small, but many farms totaled 1.9 million hectares, ie about 19% of the total area cultivated in Romania.

At the opposite - those few farmers, but with much earth. Only 13,100 farms were areas of over 100 hectares each. They totaled, but 5.3 million hectares, which is more than half of total agricultural area of Romania.

And the group "farmers middling" is unbalanced.

176 700 surfaces of farms had between 5 and 30 ha, which totaled 1.6 million ha, ie about 16% of the country's total agricultural area.

In the category of 30-50 ha were only 11,700 farms, totaling 464,500 hectares of land (or 5% of the country's total agricultural area).

Finally, 8,600 had land holdings between 50 and 100 hectares each, totaling 613,900 hectares (over 6% of the country's total agricultural area).

Businessmen: If the state cadastre do we invest in consolidation

The biggest problems of Romanian agriculture suffering are related to poor mechanization, irrigation systems and lack silozurior, and the reluctance of managers to engage in this activity, according to an analysis of the Ministry of Agriculture, above the HotNews.

A solution to these problems is to attract investments and performance management in agriculture, but investors complain of a major problem: agricultural areas in Romania are extremely broken, and a major obstacle is the lack of merging General Cadastre which the State must to achieve it.

"It is a significant advance in terms of land registration, but see very well that no investor - whether strategic or small or medium - will have no appetite, no interest shall not be registered if the land will not be tabulated, will not be confirmed as legal and regular. for us this is a key chapter, a barrier to the development of Romanian agriculture, "he said Friday, Nadia Crisan, member of the Board of American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham) in Romania and coordinator the task force's agriculture Coalition for the development of Romania, a group of Romanian and foreign investors operating in our country.

This Thursday with Agriculture Minister Daniel Constantin, at a conference Stock pressure group, she insisted on it to provide a timeframe for achieving cadastre.

"If we can confirm that there is a cadastral plan, so in the next two to five years to see an improvement in this chapter, it would be a good result," said Nadia Crisan.

The Government intends to achieve general survey of European funds through the Regional Operational Programme (ROP), managed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Administration. Moreover, the Government has put in under the Minister of Development, Liviu Dragnea, National Agency for Cadastre.

According to the Minister of Agriculture, Daniel Constantin, the government wants to invest EU funding of 250 million euros in 2014-2020 to achieve Cadastre, but Cristian Parvan, general secretary of the Association of Businessmen in Romania (AOAR) estimates that investment should reach 1 billion, and construction will take up to 10 years.

"Over the next seven years, ROP, 250 million euros were allocated for the cadastre. I hope to begin with rural cadastre, because they have the greatest need in terms of liberalization and land, but also in terms of strategy that we have for land consolidation. There the Government's commitment that once opens the Regional Operational Programme, to start achieving free cadastre and the main objective must be the achievement cadastre outside city limits, that the land will be subject to merging "gave insurance Agriculture Minister Daniel Constantin.

Although talks about "liberalization land," Minister Daniel Constantin is one that has recently initiated a law that hampers the sale of agricultural land in Romania. Law affect all transactions Terrain, initially targeted foreigners resident in other EU countries. State law is justified by the need to ensure food security protection

of Romania, in the face of possible acquisitions of agricultural land grasping after 1 January 2014 the country was forced to remove restrictions on land transactions by foreign residents in the EU.

European Commission to Romania: Sell flour, not wheat!

Romania had luck in the past two years of favorable weather conditions, which brought top agriculture production in the European Union, in some cultures.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, in 2013, we were ranked 6th in the EU cereals, maize us hovering in second place.

In oilseeds, Romania was the third production in the EU, being our first sunflower.

Year 2014 was richer as volumes: sunflower place, second place in maize and wheat sixth place. (More on agricultural production in 2014 and 2013 here).

European Commission warns, however, that no volumes produced and exported bring high-income farmers and country, but exports of processed food products, which have high added value, sell expensive and produce a multiplier effect throughout the economy.

"Romania has no interest to export grain ships, but to export, primarily processed products because they are found in traditions, culinary specifics of Romania and manpower that we still abundant in rural areas "said European Commissioner for Agriculture, Dacian Ciolos on Wednesday in Bucharest at a conference dedicated family farm.

In context, he urged Romania to connect their "power industry development education development, education, training and consulting" in agriculture, to transform the country potential economic value.

Minister Daniel Constantin said that the draft National Rural Development Programme, sent to Brussels, the government wants to get higher allocation of EU funds for farmers who integrates production with processing and marketing activities and is associated in cooperatives.

He noted that last week received the first observations of the Commission on the draft RDP.

"One of the observations I care very much refers to additional funds to those who understand integrate production and those who understand to enter associative and I refer in particular to the cooperative. In our proposal, we got additional 20% for those which integrates production, the production goes to processing, marketing and so on, "said Wednesday, Deputy Constantine.

According to estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture, Romania does not fully exploit the agricultural potential, which should be enough to provide food for a population of 35-37 million, given that the country has 20 million.