Crumbling the cropland into small plots, the low subsidies the farmers get compared to those of the other EU countries, the difficult access to credits along with the delays in the payments by the Payments and Intervention Agency for Agriculture (APIA) are all main problems that the Romanian farmers are facing even now after about two years of EU membership, said the agriculture business people attending the debate the Business Standard newspaper organized within the Private Government Project. At the same time, they believe it should be renegotiated with the European Union the parts in the Chapter on Agriculture that no longer meet the current reality. The Romanian agriculture's biggest problem is that the cropland is split into small plots both in terms of ownership and farming, Angst vice-president Stefan Padure says. An average farm has less than two ha and even that is divided into several plots and harvests are low and almost exclusively aimed to the family's consumption, namely to subsistence.

 

Such far ms are not capable to stay in competition with the EU agriculture, Padure adds. One of the biggest problem in the Romanian agriculture is the fact that in Romania the agricultural subsidies per ha are lower than those given in the other EU countries, says Adrian Porumboiu, the president of Racova Com Agro Pan, the biggest grains grower in Vaslui (east). For this reason, the finished product is more expensive in Romania than in Europe and therefore we cannot speak of a fair competition, but the problem could be solved through a better renegotiation of the EU directives on agriculture, which Romania was negotiating during its EU-pre accession, Porumboiu believes. There, are such precedents, and Romania would not be the single country to renegotiates the EU Accession chapters.

 

The Poles and the Hungarians, for instance, who were negotiating rather badly during their EU pre-accession, settled things right through new thoroughly grounded negotiations The chairman of the Romanian National Association of Milling and Baking Industries Viorel Marin shares the same opinion saying that the regulations on the grains growing have enough shortcomings, as the Romanians negotiated higher soy and lower maize crops. 'Obviously the negotiations and talks can be reopened because everybody does it on and on....' Marin pointed out. Likewise, irrespectively whether it deals with farmers or processors, they are discontent with the delays APIA pays the subsidies. The solution would be a law to stipulate the payments deadlines, but also the sanctions for those, which delay the payments, said Vineyard and Wine National Employers' Association (PNVV) general manager Ovidiu Gheorghe. It is worth to mention that Romania's cropland covers 14.7 million hectares.