Romania needs integrated agriculture strategy says Agricover GM

Newsroom 28/11/2011 | 12:47

In the past year agriculture has proved to be a hot topic in Romania, but looking beyond official speeches, the lack of a broader and more integrated strategy for this sector continues to prevent Romania from tapping more into its oft mentioned agricultural potential, said Robert Arsene, GM of local agribusiness company Agricover last week, during the Bucharest Summit organized by The Economist.

He argued that even if Romania managed to double its grain production and become a significant exporter in the Black Sea area it would still have a hard time competing with other regional players such as Russia and Ukraine.

“Looking only at agriculture without a broader strategy incorporating the food industry which would also serve a lot of the domestic market – and this is a major market – and then move into other industries like bio-energy for example, Romania will not be able to benefit from the whole potential of it,” Arsene added.

Speaking at the same seminar, Martin Schuldt, country manager of Cargill Romania, added to the list of issues that need to be addressed by the relevant authorities, the lack of predictability and the difficulty in consolidating fragmented land plots.

In his opinion, following Romania’s EU accession, the local agriculture sector has seen considerable development with production increasing and local farmers acquiring know-how and becoming more receptive to new information.

Arsene added that the progress made by Romanian agriculture in the past couple of years was a result of both internal and external factors.

The growth was mainly due to the international context which has been favorable to agricultural commodities in recent years, both in terms of demand and prices, he said. While three or four years ago grains like wheat and corn were traded at around USD 80 to 90 per ton, this year prices have gone up to USD 300 per ton.

In the past couple of years there have also been investments made by local farmers. “Many professional Romanian farmers have grown by themselves and sometimes in spite of the government and politicians; they have grown through their own resources and they have managed to recapitalize themselves and to attract EU funds and invest in upgraded technologies and machines,” Agricover’s GM went on.

There has also been increasing interest coming from foreign investors. “In the past years we have had foreign farmers establishing lucrative businesses in Romania and we see the Danish, who according to our information now exploit about 150,000 ha of land, Italian and Austrian farmers and others. So there is direct investment in this sector,” he concluded.

Simona Bazavan

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