Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...
has an agricultural capacity of approximately 9.38 million are used as
arable land
Arable land (from the , "able to be ploughed") is any land capable of being ploughed and used to grow crops.''Oxford English Dictionary'', "arable, ''adj''. and ''n.''" Oxford University Press (Oxford), 2013. Alternatively, for the purposes of a ...
. In 2008, an evaluation revealed that 6.8 million hectares are not used.6,8 milioane de hectare agricole nu sunt lucrate standard.ro, Retrieved 6 May 2009 In 2018, Romania was the third biggest agricultural producer of the EU and produced the largest amount of
maize
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...
.
Agriculture summed up about 4.3% of
GDP
Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the total market value of all the final goods and services produced and rendered in a specific time period by a country or countries. GDP is often used to measure the economic performance o ...
in 2019, down from 12.6% in 2004. As of 2017, 25.8% of the Romanian workforce is employed in agriculture, compared to an EU average of 4.4%. As of 2016, only 1.6% of Romanian farmers were recipients of tertiary education, compared to an 8.9% EU average.
Mechanization is comparatively poor, in 2009 there was one
tractor
A tractor is an engineering vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort (or torque) at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a Trailer (vehicle), trailer or machinery such as that used in agriculture, mining or constructio ...
available for every 54 hectares, while the EU average was one tractor for every 13 hectares.Chinezii încep producţia de tractoare la Râşnov , standard.ro, Retrieved 11 September 2009 Approximately 170,000 tractors existed in Romania in 2009, of which about 80% were aging or obsolete. In many regions of the country, farmers still use horse-drawn agriculture tools and rely on animal power. In 2009, while in
Western Europe
Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context.
The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...
tractors were replaced after 3,000-4,000 hours of use, in Romania they sometimes lasted up to 12,000 hours.
The main problems encountered by Romanian agriculturists are a lack of major investments in agriculture, due to difficulty in accessing available funds, fragmentation and erosion of soil, property-related lawsuits and obsolete technology. Several major companies have entered the Romanian market, including
Smithfield Foods
Smithfield Foods, Inc., is an American pork producer and food-processing company based in Smithfield, Virginia. Founded in 1936 as the Smithfield Packing Company by Joseph W. Luter and his son, the company is the largest pig and pork producer in ...
,
Cargill
Cargill, Incorporated is an American multinational food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, it is the largest privately held c ...
Glencore
Glencore plc is an Anglo-Swiss Multinational corporation, multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland, Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas headquarters are in London, London, England as well a ...
,
Lactalis
Groupe Lactalis S.A. (doing business as Lactalis) is a French multinational dairy products corporation, owned by the Besnier family and based in Laval, Mayenne, France. The company's former name was Besnier S.A.
Lactalis is the largest dairy pr ...
, and Meggle AG. These companies have since invested hundreds of millions of euros in Romania.
Production
200px, Farmers at Tescani village in Bacau County, October 2017
According to the National Statistics Institute, in 2006 991,000 ha of sun-flower and 191,000 ha of soybean were cultivated. Cereal production in 2006 stood at 15.1 million tons, including 5.3 million tons of wheat and 8.6 million tons of maize.Holdingul Agro Chirnogi imprumuta noua mil. € pentru a-si extinde culturile agricole Retrieved 4 May 2009 In 2007, a severe
drought
A drought is a period of drier-than-normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, ...
destroyed over 60% of crops. Wheat production subsequently fell to 3 million tons, and prices fell 25%. Analysts claimed it was the worst harvest since 1940.
Cereal, fruit and vegetable production: (thousands of tons)
Through the
Common Agricultural Policy
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Commission. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce ...
, Romania will receive 14.5 billion euros between 2007 and 2013, according to statements made by the
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...
.
Romania produced in 2018:
* 18.6 million tons of
maize
Maize (; ''Zea mays''), also known as corn in North American English, is a tall stout grass that produces cereal grain. It was domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago from wild teosinte. Native American ...
(9th largest producer in the world);
* 10.1 million tons of
wheat
Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...
(16th largest producer in the world);
* 3 million tons of
sunflower seed
A sunflower seed is a seed from a sunflower (''Helianthus annuus''). There are three types of commonly used sunflower seeds: linoleic (most common), high oleic, and sunflower oil seeds. Each variety has its own unique levels of monounsatura ...
s (4th largest producer in the world, only behind Ukraine, Russia and Argentina);
* 3 million tons of
potato
The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...
es;
* 1.8 million tons of
barley
Barley (), a member of the grass family, is a major cereal grain grown in temperate climates globally. It was one of the first cultivated grains; it was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent around 9000 BC, giving it nonshattering spikele ...
;
* 1.6 million tons of
rapeseed
Rapeseed (''Brassica napus'' subsp. ''napus''), also known as rape and oilseed rape and canola, is a bright-yellow flowering member of the family Brassicaceae (mustard or cabbage family), cultivated mainly for its oil-rich seed, which naturall ...
;
* 1.1 million tons of
grape
A grape is a fruit, botanically a berry, of the deciduous woody vines of the flowering plant genus ''Vitis''. Grapes are a non- climacteric type of fruit, generally occurring in clusters.
The cultivation of grapes began approximately 8,0 ...
s (17th largest producer in the world);
* 1 million tons of
cabbage
Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of '' Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.& ...
;
* 978 thousand tons of
sugar beet
A sugar beet is a plant whose root contains a high concentration of sucrose and that is grown commercially for sugar production. In plant breeding, it is known as the Altissima cultivar group of the common beet (''Beta vulgaris''). Together with ...
s, which are used to produce
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose
Glucose is a sugar with the Chemical formula#Molecular formula, molecul ...
and
ethanol
Ethanol (also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound with the chemical formula . It is an Alcohol (chemistry), alcohol, with its formula also written as , or EtOH, where Et is the ps ...
;
* 842 thousand tons of
plum
A plum is a fruit of some species in Prunus subg. Prunus, ''Prunus'' subg. ''Prunus'.'' Dried plums are often called prunes, though in the United States they may be labeled as 'dried plums', especially during the 21st century.
Plums are ...
s (2nd largest producer in the world, only behind China);
* 742 thousand tons of
tomatoes
The tomato (, ), ''Solanum lycopersicum'', is a plant whose fruit is an edible berry that is eaten as a vegetable. The tomato is a member of the nightshade family that includes tobacco, potato, and chili peppers. It originated from and was d ...
;
* 643 thousand tons of
apple
An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
s;
* 521 thousand tons of
watermelon
The watermelon (''Citrullus lanatus'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Cucurbitaceae, that has a large, edible fruit. It is a Glossary of botanical terms#scandent, scrambling and trailing vine-like plant, and is plant breeding ...
s;
* 465 thousand tons of
soy
The soybean, soy bean, or soya bean (''Glycine max'') is a species of legume native to East Asia, widely grown for its edible bean. Soy is a staple crop, the world's most grown legume, and an important animal feed.
Soy is a key source of f ...
;
* 383 thousand tons of
oat
The oat (''Avena sativa''), sometimes called the common oat, is a species of cereal grain grown for its seed, which is known by the same name (usually in the plural). Oats appear to have been domesticated as a secondary crop, as their seeds ...
s;
In addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.
Romanian agricultural research
Agricultural research in Romania developed mainly through the Agronomical Research Institute (founded 1927), and post-World War II through its successor, the Research Institute for Cereals and Industrial Crops. Some of the main Romanian agricultural scientists include Ion Ionescu de la Brad,
Genetically modified soybean
A genetically modified soybean is a soybean (''Glycine max'') that has had DNA introduced into it using genetic engineering techniques. In 1996, the first genetically modified soybean was introduced to the U.S. by Monsanto. In 2014, 90.7 millio ...
was legal to cultivate and sell until entry into the EU in 2007, whereupon they were banned. This resulted in an immediate withdrawal of 70% of the soybean hectares in 2008 and a
trade deficit
Balance of trade is the difference between the monetary value of a nation's exports and imports of goods over a certain time period. Sometimes, trade in services is also included in the balance of trade but the official IMF definition only consi ...
of
€
The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists of a stylized letter E (or epsilon), crossed by t ...
117.4m for purchase of replacement products. Farmer sentiment is very much in favour of relegalisation.