President: 2012 shows Romania’s agricultural potential, 2011 was an exception

The record production reported in 2011 was the result of an exceptional agricultural year and not a normal one while this year’s agricultural output, even if it was affected by the drought, is closer to Romania’s potential, said president Traian Basescu this Thursday at the beginning of his meeting with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank representatives.

“When talking about agriculture, we compare this year to the previous one. Even politicians have this approach and they say this year we had bad luck because of the drought. I would like to stress 2011 was an exceptional agricultural year. More or less, in 2012 we have reached an average level. This means we shouldn’t regard 2011 as a regular year when in fact it was one of the best in the past three decades,” said the president according to Mediafax newswire.

He added that given Romania’s infrastructure, 2012 is closer to the country’s potential than the previous year.

IMF representatives said this year the Romanian economy can expect a moderate economic growth, similar to last year’s level, because of several factors one of which is the poor performance of the agricultural sector.

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Romania’s 2011 agriculture output up 8.9 percent on good weather

The local agricultural industry generated RON 76.5 billion last year (approximately EUR 18 billion) up 8.9 percent against the previous year, according to data from the NationalInstituteofStatistics(INS).

The growth was generated by a 12 percent higher crop output which totaled some RON 54.11 billion (approximately EUR 12.8 billion) while animal output increased only by 0.8 percent to RON 21.8 billion (approximately EUR 5.1 billion) and agricultural services decreased by 4.6 percent to RON 0.54 billion (approximately EUR 0.12 billion).

This year’s corn production could drop by about 60 percent from the 11.6 million ton record level reported in 2011 while the wheat output is on average 25 percent below the 7.1 million tons harvested a year ago. The drought has also burned up some 45 percent of this year’s sunflower crops, farmers say.

Simona Bazavan